


buzzcut season

by wearethefoxes



Series: hometown [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Allison, BAMF Boyd, BAMF Lydia Martin, BAMF Stiles, Derek is a Good Alpha, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Derek Hale, Hurt/Comfort, Insomniac Stiles, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Major Character Injury, Mild Gore, Minor Injuries, Overuse Of Parentheses, POV Alternating, Pack Bonding, Pack Feels, Panic Attacks, Post S2, Stiles Stilinski Takes Care Of Derek Hale, Stiles-centric, scott and stiles have difficulties but work through them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:34:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethefoxes/pseuds/wearethefoxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was Isaac who came first, that summer.</p>
<p>He showed up at Derek’s loft with a backpack hanging on his shoulder and an expression on his face that was at once lost and heartbroken, and Derek didn't hesitate to step aside and open the door to let him in. </p>
<p>or</p>
<p>After the events with the Kanima, Derek tries to be a better alpha and Stiles ends up all alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. shut my eyes to the song that plays

**Author's Note:**

> So I was just going to post this all in one go but it was getting really long and I've been sitting on it since like Christmas, so I decided to just post it.  
> This remains mostly canon for season two, but I bent a few things to my will. If they're different than in canon it'll say (basically just I'll describe something differently or whatever), but otherwise just assume it's canon. The mythology stuff - which I'll get into more in the other chapters, but be warned now - is all made up, even if it's by the same name. I'll get into more specifics later; for now it's just the Alpha pack that we see as different from canon.
> 
> Anyway, this is my first sterek fic so please be kind but feel free to point out any mistakes since this is mostly unbeta'd

It was Isaac who came first, that summer. 

He showed up at Derek’s loft with a backpack hanging on his shoulder and an expression on his face that was at once lost and heartbroken, and Derek didn’t hesitate to step aside and open the door to let him in. Isaac stepped past him, dropping his backpack on the floor by the door in the pile of Derek’s shoes, and then he plopped down on Derek’s couch, his hands in his lap and his eyes staring straight ahead. The TV was on in front of him, turned to some sitcom that Derek had been using as white noise as he cooked himself dinner, but Derek didn't think that he was watching it. After a moment, Derek remembered to slide the door closed, stepping closer to the couch and just watching Isaac, at a loss of what to do. Something about Isaac in that moment reminded him painfully of himself, and he didn't know what to do with it. In the back of his mind, he felt a nudge that felt something like his mother, and before he knew it he was coming back to his living room with a glass of water. He crouched in front of Isaac, pushing his wooden coffee table back so that he would fit in the space, and offered him the glass. Isaac took it silently, and Derek watched him with just as much noise. When the glass was drained, Isaac wrapped both hands around it and put it in his lap. Staring at his fingers, he finally mumbled, “I didn't know where else to go.”

 Something complicated twitched in Derek’s chest, almost motherly, wanting to say things like _You’re always welcome here_ or _I want to help you_ or _I’m sorry for what a failure of an alpha I've been_  or, even, _Stiles would know what to do_. Derek thought that those might be too much, and he wasn't sure he could get any of them out of his mouth anyway. In the end, he said after a long pause, “Dinner’s almost ready, if you wanted to stay.”

 Isaac didn't say anything, so Derek stood, resting his hand on Isaac’s shoulder as he passed, and went into the kitchen to finish making dinner. It was just pasta and alfredo sauce, nothing complicated, but he made sure to put more noodles in the pot in case Isaac stayed.

Isaac did stay for dinner, and then a movie that was showing on TV afterwards, and when the movie was done and Isaac still made no move to leave, Derek hesitantly offered up his guest room. Isaac looked at him, hope flushing his cheeks and his heart a little faster, and before Isaac could respond, Derek gave him a small smile and went upstairs to make sure the sheets were clean.

 

Derek never did find out why Isaac came that first night, but he didn't really mind, because after that, Isaac was at his house almost every day. They didn't always talk; Derek was better now than he had been before, but he still wasn't particularly chatty, and Isaac usually brought a book or his laptop. After Isaac complained about how Derek had nothing except a TV, Derek bought an Xbox and a blu ray and DVD player and all kinds of things for Isaac to do all day.

 (“You didn't have to buy all this for me,” Isaac said when he saw it, running his fingers reverently over Derek’s new speaker system. “I mean, this is a lot of money to spend on just me.”

Derek shrugged. “It’s not like I have anyone left to buy things for.” Or like you've got anyone else buying for you, he silently added, and Isaac didn't mention it again.)

 

Even though he saw Isaac almost every day, it was a week and a half before Isaac brought anyone else to the loft with him.

By now, they had a routine. Isaac would show up late in the morning or afternoon. Him and Derek would make some food together (sometimes, Derek bought Isaac food if they didn't feel like cooking, and Derek took to stocking his cupboards with all sorts of junk food), and then they would clean up together, usually listening to music Isaac picked, unless he chose something that offended Derek’s ears. In those cases, they would scuffle over the iPod in the kitchen, and the winner would get to pick. (Derek usually won). After that, Derek would work on his laptop, and Isaac would busy himself. Sometimes, he roped Derek into playing video games. (Derek was, apparently, “tragically bad” at most video games, something that Isaac at once tried to remedy and found hilarious). They would cook dinner, maybe watch a movie or some TV together. Sometimes, Isaac went back to whatever foster family he was staying with, and sometimes he didn't. Derek always made Isaac text his foster parents on the nights that he planned to stay, just in case. Some nights, that meant that Isaac had to go home, which disappointed them both, but it was necessary.  

That first time, Isaac was late, and Derek realized why as soon he smelled Erica’s scent coming up the stairs to his loft. He tensed on his couch, grip white-knuckled on his book, but he didn't tell Isaac not to come up and he didn't go and hide, which he considered an improvement. He could smell the anxiety coming off of Erica, and he could hear the reassuring tone of Isaac’s voice, but he tried not to listen to what Isaac was saying, or what she was saying back. When they finally made it inside his loft, Derek had abandoned all pretense of nonchalance, setting his book on the couch and standing by the foot of it, facing the door as it swung open. He couldn't tell what expression was on his face, but he thought it might be a bit more vulnerable than he normally allowed.

Erica was wringing her hands together, and she _reeked_ of anxiety. Instead of her usual corset-red-lipstick-heels-eye-makeup combo, she was wearing a little eyeliner and mascara, as well as a simple black t-shirt and some sneakers with jeans. It was kind of a pleasant change, but it looked kind of off on her, like something was missing. Isaac had to nudge her past the doorway, and when she opened her mouth to talk, Derek found himself holding his breath. “Look, Derek,” she began, not meeting his eyes. “We didn't mean to hurt you when we -”

Before she could finish, Derek was moving forward and smothering her in a hug. The action appeared to surprise her as much as it surprised him, but he held on, one hand on the back of her neck holding her head to his chest, his chin on her head. He breathed in heavily, letting her scent fill his nostrils (apples, vanilla, and pack). After a moment’s hesitation, she hugged him back just as tightly, breathed him in just as fully. “It’s okay,” he murmured into her hair, and she nodded against his chest. He thought that his shirt might be a little damp where her head rested, but he didn't comment, just held her tighter. “It’s okay.”

 

After that, Isaac brought Erica with him a few times a week. (That first day, once he’d stopped grinning like a maniac, he pulled Erica over to the couch and introduced her to Derek’s gaming center. He hadn't gotten much work done that day, as distracted as he was by first their squeals of delight, and then Isaac’s outrage as Erica handed his ass to him in Call of Duty.) Boyd came too, eventually, both Isaac and Erica tugging him into the room and then leaving him in the kitchen with Derek. He’d looked as uncomfortable as Derek had ever seen him, shuffling his weight a little and not meeting Derek’s eyes. Isaac and Erica were eavesdropping from the living room; Derek could tell because they weren't talking at all, and every time Derek made a noise in his cooking, their heart rates skyrocketed. He smirked a little at their obviousness; growing up in a house full of werewolves, he had learned early on the art of eavesdropping.

Finally, Boyd cleared his throat, and Derek halted in his preparations, his eyebrows low over his eyes. “Look,” Boyd began, “I know that Erica talked to you...and I know what you said, you know, in response.” Derek nodded, trying not to smile at how uncomfortable Boyd looked. “But I just wanted to make it clear.” He wrung his hand across the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake to run away from you, and I understand now why you did - what you did.”

Derek nodded again, his lips tipping up at the corners involuntarily. “It’s all good, man.” He looked to the vegetables he’d left on the counter. “You wanna help me make dinner? We’re having vegetable beef soup.” Boyd still looked unsure, so he hedged, “It’s a secret family recipe, you know. I don’t share it with just anyone.”

 Boyd finally smiled, looking relieved to have gotten off so easily. He tried to play it cool by shrugging, but after a moment he let himself. “Yeah,” he said, a little faintly. “That sounds nice.” Derek’s grin grew, and he nodded and handed Boyd a knife and left a space for him to work to his right.

 

Derek almost never spent the day by himself now. Three weeks after Isaac first started coming, they were all comfortable coming on their own and just hanging out at Derek’s loft. (Idly one day, Isaac remarked, “You didn't even tell us you’d moved,” and Derek had blushed a little. He’d forgotten that he had anyone left to tell about his life anymore). Sometimes, they all came together, but sometimes, it was just Boyd and Derek sharing the couch as they read, or Isaac and him having impromptu dance parties as they cooked in the kitchen (“Loosen up a little,” Isaac said right before their first one, nudging Derek’s hip with his own), or Erica enlisting Derek’s help on whatever craft she was working on for her sister. Friday nights without fail, they all came together, touting movies and bags of microwave popcorn. They would all pile on the couch (Derek didn’t bother trying to get work done on Friday nights anymore) and settle in to watch whatever movie - or movies, most nights - they’d brought. Sometimes, they’d get done so late that instead of going their separate ways they’d just move their pile from the couch to Derek’s bed or the bed upstairs. Soon, his loft smelled like the four of them, and he forgot what it was like to be lonely.

 

The first time Derek heard Jackson’s Porsche roaring into the parking lot, he dropped the stack of papers he’d been carrying all over the floor. He left them there, going instead to the windows that made up the back wall and leaning his head against them as he listened. He heard the distinct sound Jackson grumbling and cursing in his car over the thumping of the bass in whatever song he was listening to. Three songs later, Jackson punched the button for the radio, and in the sudden silence the sound of him yanking the keys from the ignition and bursting from the car seemed deafening. He began snarling and grumbling as he paced the parking lot. Derek waited for him to come up the stairs and bang on the door, but he never did, so eventually Derek went down to him. It took him a while to notice Derek standing in the doorway to the building watching him pace (absently, it reminded Derek that he should probably work on training his betas), but when he did, he started and then scowled. He didn’t seem to know how to behave around Derek, and he looked vaguely wild. With a pang, Derek realized that it was his fault that Jackson was this way; he should have spoken to him as soon as he rid himself of the kanima, taught him what it meant to be a wolf and what it meant to be a pack.

Finally, Jackson, snarled, “I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t want to be here.”

 Derek regarded him. That may be true, but already he could feel Jackson’s energy calming. Lydia was good for him, Derek knew, helped him keep control, but Lydia was not wolf. “It’s because it smells like pack,” Derek explained. “You can’t help it; your wolf needs this.”

Jackson bared his teeth. “I don’t need anyone.” But he made no move to leave.

Derek closed his eyes. He did not need this snarling, angry beta, one so reluctant to accept help and to admit his faults. Not now, not when he’d just gotten the rest of them steady, gotten them to trust him. Still, he tried to think of what his mother would do, of what Stiles would want him to do. He opened his eyes, and saw Jackson in a new way; angry, yes, and still an asshole, but also scared and unsure in his own skin. He said, “You’re always welcome here.”

For a moment, Jackson’s face froze in surprise. His cheeks colored a little, and his hands unfisted. And then he was sneering, barking out a quick, “Whatever,” before he threw himself back in his car and sped away. Derek stood in the parking lot for another moment staring after him before went back upstairs and picked his papers up off the floor.

 

That week, Jackson was there for Friday movie night. He came late, left after the first movie, and barely talked to anyone, but he came, and Derek smiled the whole night long.

 

Stiles doesn't really sleep.

After he and Derek almost drowned, the panic attacks start coming again. He doesn't tell his dad, because he’d have to explain why, and he doesn't tell Scott because he thinks he had bigger problems than Stiles’ inability to cope. And then, after Gerard, there are nightmares, and bruises worse than the ones on his face that he hides from everyone. He doesn't really have anyone left to notice them anyway (he thinks Danny might have noticed them, one lacrosse practice, but Stiles avoids him until they go away). Derek used to be someone who noticed, but Stiles isn't - they don't do that anymore, the noticing thing.

The nightmares, coupled with chronic insomnia and an inability to settle at all when something is bothering him, mean that Stiles spends the remainder of the school year in a sleep-deprived haze, and that when summer begins, Stiles spends a lot of time trying to distract himself from how achingly tired he is. 

He reads through all of his required summer reading in a week.

He reads all the books Deaton lets him take soon after that.

He beats Skyrim.

He beats all the Lego Harry Potter games.

He researches cures for insomnia.

He researches permanent psychological damage for pathological liars.

He does not sleep.

If Scott notices all the Red Bulls and coffee Stiles is downing when they hang out, he doesn't say anything, the same way Stiles isn't saying anything about all the texts Scott is getting from Derek and Isaac and even Erica, once, inviting him to pack movie nights at Derek’s loft, or Minecraft sessions at Derek’s loft, or just to hang out at Derek’s loft. It isn't a big deal, really. Scott doesn't know the details of what happened between him and Derek, just that something had happened, and that Stiles doesn't talk about it. He knows that Scott is worried about him, but Stiles pretends so hard that everything is all right that he thinks Scott might not be saying anything purely out of respect for all of Stiles’ hard work.

And his dad is so used to getting lies that he hardly bothers asking Stiles anything at all, these days, besides, “pass the salt please,” or, “When will you be home?” He thinks his dad might have started drinking again, but it’s not like they se each other enough for him to be able to tell.

Nights when Stiles gets overwhelmed with how incredibly tired, how incredibly alone he is, when panic attacks chase one another, when no amount of TV or research can distract him, he regrets what had happened with Derek. Derek, if nothing else, had been consistent. (When Stiles is honest with himself, he can admit that Derek was so much more than consistent, but those days are getting fewer and farther between the more time he spends not sleeping).

On one of these nights, he fixates on how none of these texts to Scott are about training, just bonding. After much internal debate, Stiles opens for the first time the folder on his desktop titled “dereks pack”. He opens one of the documents and reads through it. It details a training exercise that helped develop the ability to track scents, one that him and Derek had come up with together. He makes an email to Derek, attaches the doc, and writes, simply, _Derek - I hope this helps. Good luck with your pack_. Before he can overthink it too much, he presses send. He has a mini panic attack right there in his desk chair, and recovered just in time for him to start getting ready to go to Deaton’s.

He doesn't get any reply, but a few days later, when Scott gets a text inviting him to a pack training exercise, Stiles says that he won’t be offended if Scott went, and he did, after he makes Stiles promise that he doesn't mind.

Stiles keeps the promise, mostly.

 

Derek wasn't sure what finally got Scott to come. Isaac was the one to first invite him anything, just to some random video gaming session, but after that Derek made a point of texting him every Friday night, and asking the others to text him periodically to invite him to things. (He thought Isaac was the only one who listened to him, but that was okay, as long as someone was). They were a few weeks into their routine when Stiles sent the email. It had taken Derek a moment to even move when he saw the email in his inbox, and an even longer time to catch his breath once he finally opened it. It wasn't like the email itself was particularly long - it was only two sentences, for Christ’s sake - but the attachment brought up memories of sitting on Stiles’ bed in Stiles’ room, Stiles laughing at him from the desk and _shut up idiot, you know what I meant, and it’s not like you've got any better ideas_ , and by the time he finally closed the lid on that particular box of memories, his entire pack was surrounding him, trying to get close enough to touch him and whimpering. He gave into their instincts, letting himself be led upstairs to the bed, letting them all pile together, letting them scent each other and him, until he was aware enough to actually settle them. Derek got up and made them dinner, and then over creamy chicken and rice, he asked, “How would you feel if we started training again?” Isaac, Erica, and Boyd tensed, while Jackson just looked at him with a faintly puzzled expression. Guilt and shame settled low in Derek’s stomach, and he hurried to add, “Not like before. Different sort of training.” They agreed, cautiously, and he set a date later in the week that worked for all of them and told them to meet at his loft in the morning.

 Of course, the night before they were due to meet, the alpha pack delivered another message, this time to his loft, by painting the window with their symbol. When the pack - and Scott, of course this was the first time Scott came to anything - showed up, Derek was just getting ready to clean up the paint. “What’s that?” Scott asked sharply.

Isaac exhaled, coming up behind Derek to just look at it. “It’s the alpha pack, isn't it?” Isaac asked, and Derek nodded reluctantly. He could feel that he was glaring and scowling but didn't try to stop.

“What alpha pack?” Scott again, but Derek could tell the others were curious, too. “It doesn't matter,” Derek said, shaking his head. Scott opened his mouth to protest, but Derek was quick to cut him off. “If it comes to matter, I’ll tell you, but for now it’s just an empty threat.”

 Scott nodded, but he didn't seem happy about it. Derek took a deep breath, and then he said, “Give me a minute or two, and then I’ll be ready to take you guys to my family’s house.” They exchanged glances at that, but nodded, and twenty minutes later they were standing at the edge of the tree line by Derek’s family’s house. “Here’s how this exercise works. I have these two socks. You guys get one of them, and I’ll have the other. The goal is to find the second sock. I’ll be the one to hide it in the woods, and I’ll howl when it’s done. That’s when you guys head in to try to find it. Got it?” They nodded, but Scott had a weird expression on his face.

“Is that - are those the Sheriff’s socks?” he asked timidly, and Derek flushed but nodded.

“I - when I planned this - Stiles and I were -” he broke off, feeling hurt and longing in his stomach. He’d been planning to do this for a long while, had planned to have Stiles with him when he did. Stiles had given him the socks himself, saying it would be more effective if they did the exercise with a scent they didn’t know well. His betas shifted uncomfortably, and he could tell that they wanted to comfort him, but Scott nodded and dropped it, something like understanding in his expression. Derek cleared his throat. “Anyway. Are you all ready?” They were, and Derek took off into the woods.

 

The exercise went well, all things considered. It took them an hour finally find the sock, and when it finally got found, it was Erica with the sock and the others so far away from her that he didn't even bother to pretend they had been close. Derek praised Erica, and she preened more than a little. When Derek set the others fighting each other on the lawn as he watched, he saw her taunting them more than once, trying to make them angry. It worked with Jackson, but Boyd and Isaac just rolled their eyes and kept going, used to it by now. And Scott - Scott was sitting next to Derek on the porch, watching them.

“You should join them,” Derek finally said, when he became too aware of how much Scott smelled like Stiles, underneath the Argent girl.

 Scott shrugged. “I don’t really -” he broke off with a huff. He took a moment before he tried again. “I think I was _actually_ fighting them too recently for it to go well.” Derek nodded, and didn't push; he could see the wisdom in that. “Sorry about that, by the way,” Scott added, almost as an aside, but Derek could smell nerves on him. Derek raised an eyebrow silently, waiting. Scott cleared his throat, watching the betas and rubbing the back of his neck. “About - how against you I was. And before that, with um, Peter, when I first got bitten. I was - I’m sorry.”

Derek was startled by the apology, and as Boyd sent Isaac flying far into the trees, he found that he didn't know what to say in response. Eventually, he said, “Did Stiles put you up to this?” He could feel Scott looking at him, but he made sure that his face was blank and his heartbeat calm.

“We talked a lot about it, a few months back. He always wanted me to say something, but I never did.”

“Until now.”

“Until now.” Scott hesitated, and then he said, “I don’t really know what happened with you and Stiles, and I guess I don’t really need to, but you've really - you've changed a lot, Derek. I don’t know how much of it was him, but it’s good.” Isaac came back out of the trees just then, laughing and human, leaves and twigs sticking out of his hair. Erica started cackling at him, and he ran at her and caught her around the waist, throwing her over his shoulder. She was shrieking with laughter, pounding his back with her fists and demanding through her giggles that he put her down. Jackson and Boyd were standing together, leaning against each other as they laughed to keep standing. With a wicked grin, Isaac dumped Erica in a pile of leaves, but she managed to drag him down her, and soon they were all in the pile, hooting and laughing and throwing leaves at each other.

Derek didn't realize he was smiling until Scott bumped their shoulders together, meeting his eyes and grinning back, this puppy-like thing that lit up his whole face. Derek didn't ever think the full force of it had ever been directed at him before, until now. “It’s really good.”

 

Scott came by the next day. He seemed - light, lighter than Stiles had seen him in a long time. When Stiles smiled at him, letting him in the door (he never used to have to let him in, he used to just come in, and when had that changed? And was it Scott who’d made the change, or Stiles?) it felt brittle, like it would break right off his face if Scott questioned it. They played video games and talked, and though Scott didn't bring it up, Stiles could tell he wanted to. They were sharing a pizza (Scott was eating most of it - Stiles started to feel full half through his first slice, but finished it and half of another one just so Scott didn't notice so much) before Stiles finally sighed and asked, “So, how was it?”

Scott’s smile was immediate and blinding, and Stiles couldn't be mad at him for going if he wanted to now. “It was so good, man,” he gushed, putting down his pizza slice so he could gesture while he talked. “ _Derek_ is so good, if you’d believe it. I mean, with them. He’s, like, a real alpha now. They’re all on the same wavelength and shit now, it’s kinda weird.”

 Stiles cocked his head a little at that, leaning forward in his seat. “What do you mean?”

 Scott seemed to catch himself, like he wasn't sure if he was supposed to share or not, and Stiles tried not to feel hurt. (They used to share everything without thought, and when had that changed?). He only paused a moment before he explained. “It’s like - like, when he brought out the socks for the thing we were doing, and I asked about them, cause they smelled rank and all like your dad and stuff. He got all weird and like, hurt, and then his betas did, too, like I’m pretty sure Isaac whimpered.”

 _Shit._ Stiles had completely forgotten about the socks. His smile was plastic, and Scott looked a little guilty, like maybe he realized what he was saying, and to whom, but Stiles powered through with effort. “That’s a good thing, right?”

 Scott’s brow wrinkled a little. “I think so. I mean, it means they’re close at least, right? Which is more than you could say for them, like, two months ago. Even Jackson was there, man! And he mostly got along!”

 “That’s good,” Stiles said, smiling, and it was. It was just - just that Stiles was supposed to be a part of it. When they’d made all these plans, and Derek had explained to him how a pack was supposed to be, he’d always been a part of it. Hell, he’d been at the head of it, the driving force, even. And now, he wasn't anything to any of them.

He forced himself to pay attention when he realized that Scott was talking again. “- apparently Friday movies are like, pack tradition or something, I don’t know. It kinda seemed like it was _the shit_ , you know? Mandatory, or something.” Scott shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Stiles knew what question was next, and he kind of hated that Scott felt like he had to ask; he wasn't a needy girlfriend or something, and Stiles had never claimed to Derek that he was getting Scott in the divorce. That had never been a thing.

Stiles sighed quietly to himself, and then forced a smile on his face. “You wanna go?” Scott nodded sheepishly. “Then go. You don’t have to ask my permission, Scotty. It’s not gonna offend me.”

Scott looked up at him from across the table. “You sure?”

Stiles shrugged. “I’m sure. Besides, it’s not like you can stay an omega forever.”

 Scott smiled. “True. Thanks, man.”

Stiles smiled back, still a little stiff. “No problem.”

It kind of felt like it might be, though.

 

After that, Scott went to Friday movie every week, and took to spending some afternoons at Derek’s loft with the rest of them. He never came by himself, and he really only seemed comfortable alone with Derek and Isaac, but he was coming, and making an effort. It was hard for Derek, sometimes, because he smelled vaguely of Stiles, and sometimes he would say something or make a face or gesture that was clearly from Stiles, and Derek had to stop himself from inviting Stiles, or from just going to see him, talk to him. (Tell him how worried he was about Isaac and his foster family, and how he sometimes thought about just adopting the kid, how scared he was that he was just going to fuck everything up again, how he was just waiting for this to fall apart because there were days when he felt happy, and God knew what that had always meant for him in the past). But he never did, and he could tell that Scott was refraining sometimes from bringing Stiles up, or from telling a story if it involved Stiles.

Scott got along with all of them though, even it sometimes seemed like he was tiptoeing. And whenever he did snap, and lose his temper, it was always at Jackson. Derek could understand that - some days it felt like Jackson was actively _trying_ to piss them all off - but it still surprised him, made him feel tense. He knew that in the past, Scott and Jackson had not gotten along, and that since Stiles and Scott had kidnapped him things had gotten even worse, but he was hoping that both of them being pack would smooth that over on its own.

It didn't.

In fact, it took Jackson getting in an argument with Derek for Scott and Jackson to work it out.

One day, when Derek was alone in the kitchen making homemade bread (why did they always confront him in his kitchen? And while he was cooking, no less), Jackson came in. He seemed like he always did; standoffish, tense, vaguely petulant. Without any preamble, Jackson announced, “I want to invite Lydia to pack night.”

Derek swore and dropped the cup measure full of flour on to the counter. It exploded up Derek’s front in a puff of white, and even as he was spitting it out of his mouth and blinking it out of his eyes, he was exclaiming, “What?”

Jackson frowned, absently dusting his chest off as some of the white powder settled on his shirt. “She’s pack to me,” he said mulishly.

“I _know_ ,” Derek said. He knew that he was frowning, but he felt too ambushed by the request to be anything but honest and a bit startlingly blunt at this point. “But she hates me. She’ll probably castrate me the moment she walks in the door.”

Jackson smirked, his eyebrows rising slightly. He looked like he wouldn't mind it a little if she did. From the other room, Scott piped up, “Well, you did kinda try to murder her a while back.”

Derek sputtered, talking a damp towel and wiping his face with it. “I thought she was a mass murder!”

“And then your psychotic uncle kind of possessed her so he could raise himself from the dead,” Isaac added, appearing at Derek’s elbow with the broom and handing it to him as he himself swept the flour from the counter with his hands, throwing it in the sink when he was done.

Derek scowled, beginning to sweep. “I’m _aware_. I just - I understand that she’s pack to you, Jackson, and I understand how important that is. And I know you've already told her everything you know about wolves. It’s just - I know she hates me. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with that - you guys all hated me at one point - but she’ll challenge me at every corner and I feel like we just barely -” _learned to even get used to each other, much less trust each other_ , he finished silently in his head. He sighed, leaning against the broom and meeting Jackson’s eyes. They were stormy, stubborn, and his posture was the same, all crossed arms and wide planted feet. Unconsciously, Derek’s eyes flicked to the remains of the black paint still on his window from the last time the alphas threatened him. Derek didn't know if he could afford to have more people to protect.

“What do you have against Lydia?” Scott asked, vaulting himself off the couch to stand behind Jackson. Jesus, he sounded defensive, too. Derek did not need this; he just wanted to finish his bread.

“Nothing.” Derek rubbed a hand down his face. If they wanted this bread with dinner they were going to have leave him alone. “Look, I know she’s beautiful and brilliant and has a heart of gold underneath the bitchy exterior, and that she’s the bravest person I’ll ever meet, but it’s one thing to know all that about her, and another thing entirely to have all of that up in my space all the time. She’s a goddamn force of nature, and I can’t have the weight of her safety resting on my shoulder, especially since she’ll resist having it there as much and as vocally as she can.”

When Derek looked back up from his examination of the scratches in the metal of his sink, Jackson and Scott were both staring at him open mouthed. Derek raised an eyebrow at him in question. “When did you start hero worshiping Lydia?” Scott breathed, and then suddenly seemed to answer his own question, his expression knowing. Derek blushed and looked away. Jackson muttered a question under his breath to Scott, still sounding confused. Derek didn’t hear what it was, but he heard Scott’s answer. “He had his thing with Stiles, remember?”

The tips of his ears were burning now, and something was churning in his gut as he brushed past Isaac - who has leaning against the counter on the other side of the sink just watching the whole time, the little shit - to get more flour for the bread. Thing, Scott said, like THING with raised eyebrows and implications, when really it’d been none of that. It’d been more like _thing_ , like friends, like movies and books and late night confessions and saving each others lives and occasionally sharing a bed when the nights got bad. Not that Derek would have minded more but it didn't - that wasn't really an option now, he knew.

After a while, Derek became aware that Jackson and Scott were still there, watching him as he began to knead the bread on the counter. It felt good, centering, touching the bread, shaping it. He enjoyed making bread immensely; he’d forgotten. Scott cleared his throat. “It’s not gonna be like that. Lydia might not be wolf, but she can respect boundaries if she knows to.” From the corner of his eye, Derek saw Jackson nod along with Scott’s words. It didn't sound like much of an endorsement, but then Scott continued, in softer tones, “And it’s not your job to keep us all safe, Derek. We have each other’s backs.”

Elbow deep in bread, Derek paused, his throat tight. Of course it was his job. His uncle turned Scott, and the rest of them he did himself. That made them his responsibility. Anything that went wrong was his fault. (Stiles voice in his head, in memories, chastising him, _they knew what they were getting into, Derek_ and then Derek’s feeble protests - he’d been so tired that day, so broken, so heavy with the weight of all their lives - _not Scott, Scott didn’t ask for any of this shit, and how could any of them predicted this_? and Stiles sighing, going to him on the bed, pulling them together in a tight hug, his fingers in his hair. Eventually, he continued, _Scott could leave if he wanted to. They all could. They choose to stay. They’re in this as much as you are._ ) He didn’t know what to say to that, so eventually he cleared his throat, continuing in his kneading and said, gruffly, “She can come. But if she becomes a problem, she can’t become a fixture, got it?”

They met Derek’s eyes when he looked at them, Jackson’s bright and Scott with his puppy smile again, nodding, before they bounded off to play video games, chattering excitedly to each other.

Isaac came up behind him, slapping a hand on Derek’s shoulder as he covered the bread to rise. “You did good,” he muttered, and he sounded like he meant it. Derek nodded distractedly, washing his hands and trying to unstick dough and flour from between his fingers. He wasn't so sure, but he tried to take it to heart.

Jackson and Scott didn't fight so much after that - at least, no more than Jackson fought with anyone. Almost a week later, Lydia was at pack night. She smelled anxious, uncomfortable, but she walked in with her heels and her perfectly curled hair and her lip gloss and stated that if they chose a tacky action flick she was going to castrate them (Derek was gratified that he wasn't the only one to look vaguely afraid at the threat). She sat with Jackson on the chair, holding hands, and as they night went on, she gradually relaxed. She and Jackson didn't stay for the puppy pile that occurred afterwards on Derek’s bed, but she looked like she found it amusing instead of weird and promised she’d be back next week, with only something of a threat in the words when she did.

 

Allison shows up at Stiles’ door one Friday night.

It’s not like he’s not glad to see her, or that he wants her to leave - the opposite, probably (because she doesn’t know him well enough to tell that when he’s lying but still cares enough to ask and he thinks that might be just what he needs) - but he is a little surprised to see her there. Still, he opens up his door to her. She smiles softly at him as she brushes past him, her hand squeezing his arm in that motherly way of hers, settling down at his kitchen table. He’s got research spread out all over the table (some of the material is Deaton’s, old books and papers, and others are articles printed from the internet. He’s got his notebook there too, so he can write down what’s useful), and he quickly piles it up and moves it out of the way so he can sit across from her.

Stiles has maintained that he’s a very different person than he was before he got involved in this werewolf shit, but he still can’t stand uncomfortable silence. True to form, he offers, with a little flail of his hand, “Pack movie nights rough on you?”

Allison shrugs, her eyes on her hands folded carefully together on the tabletop. Stiles’ own hands are fisted underneath his thighs, slowly losing circulation. “Not normally,” Allison replies, biting her lip a little. “But Lydia went to her first one last week and...decided to go back, I guess.”

Stiles winces, then nods in understanding. He’s been out of love with Lydia for a while (since after the rave, his minds supplies, along with images of dark hair and green eyes and hushed tears in the dark. Shut up, he supplies to his mind), but he still worries about her with Derek’s pack. He understands from the little Scott has said that they all have much better control now, and a lot less anger, but he still remembers hiding her in that house and the fear that he’d felt. “I get that,” he eventually replies, and Allison looks up at him and smiles, a little sadly. She is different now, after witnessing so many deaths, but then, they all are. Her mom’s death especially did a number on her. He can forgive her for going over to the dark side, since it makes him feel slightly better about his own little stint in torturing-Derek-land ( _it’s not a stint if you’re still in it_ , his brain whispers, along with, _and it’s torturing you too_ ).

“How do you deal with it?” Allison asks, her leg jiggling under the table. Her dark eyes flit up to his, and then away again. She licks her lips, tapping her thumb on the table. Stiles doesn't think he’s ever seen her with this little composure, and it’s a little - gratifying, in a horrible way, because it makes her seem more human and helps him feel less bad about how much of a mess he is himself. He takes his hands out from under him and lays them on the table, and now their postures are identical, although for once in his life he isn't the one with the fidgeting problem (the only one, anyway). “Being alone all the time?”

“I don’t know that I do,” Stiles admits quietly, staring at his hands. He can feel her looking at him, but he doesn't meet her eyes. “Deal with it, I mean.” They lapse into a silence again, this one a bit more comfortable than the last. Just when the silence starts to weigh on him, Stiles stands.  “You what will solve all of our problems? Pizza. Pizza will fix everything.” He looks down at her, and she smiles at him and nods, looking marginally brighter than before. “I’m pretty sure we have frozen, but we could order in if you wanted.”

Allison smiles and shakes her head. “Frozen is good,” and Stiles pulls it out and puts it in the oven, and they move to the couch while they wait. Stiles puts on a movie (he doesn't really know why, he doesn't want to watch it, maybe he just needs the noise), and Allison snorts when they reach the title screen. Stiles raises an eyebrow at her. “This is Scott’s favorite movie,” Allison explains, and Stiles smiles a little because he knows. A thought occurs to him, but he hesitates. Allison catches the look though, and she’s making a face at him that indicates that if he doesn't share she’ll pull her crossbow on him.

“Do you two still...fondue?” Stiles asks, and then smirks because he’s a little shit.

She gives him a look that says she understood the reference and is severely unimpressed, but it still takes her a while to actually answer the question. “I broke up with him,” she explains slowly, her knees to her chest and her eyes on the wall in front of them. The movie isn't started yet and Stiles doesn't know where the remote is, but he doesn't look for it, just watches Allison as she talks. “But it - didn't stick, I guess. I was angry at my dad and we didn't really talk about anything, and Lydia was busy with Jackson and I just - didn't want to be alone when I didn't have to be, especially not when I missed my mom so goddamn much.”

Stiles wishes, not for the first time, that he could be someone more like Allison; someone strong and brave even when they were afraid, who never sold out her friends, who was strong enough to ask for help and to reach out when she needed it, who admitted her mistakes when she made them and took the responsibility. Stiles hid behind his sarcasm and his research, and he couldn't even ask his dad for more milk when they were out, much less help in recovering from supernatural trauma. “We’re not really together, I guess,” Allison continues after a long silence. “But we’re more than friends. We talk a lot, about everything. We have so many issues, but I think we both realized that it’d be better to work them out together than try to figure it out on our own.  He - stays with me, some nights. Nothing happens. We just sleep. But it’s nice, to not fall asleep alone.”

Stiles nods, his throat suddenly tight, because that’s one thing he can understand. (They never used to do anything, either, though sometime Stiles wished they had just so he could have something to hold on to, now that he’s alone at night) (so alone, so alone, he’s so so alone). When the timer for the pizza goes off in the other room, it takes Stiles a moment to push himself up and off the couch and go and get it. He comes back with the pizza, some napkins, and a can of Coke for them both. “Not spiked,” he reassures her, passing her the drink and a napkin. “Damn it,” she sighs, shooting him a grin. Hesitantly, Stiles smiles back.

“So what about you?” Allison asks, later, when they've eaten half a pizza between the two of them with the music from the title sequence playing softly in the background. (Stiles is proud of himself for the piece and a half he eats without difficulty even as he forces the last bite down his reluctant throat). Stiles raises a quizzical eyebrow at her, and she rolls her eyes and scoffs, settling deeper into the couch and digging her feet under his thighs. “Oh come on.” When he doesn't elaborate, she says - slowly, like she’s talking to a child: “You and Derek.”

Immediately, Stiles tenses, the can of Coke stopping halfway to his mouth. He can feel his chest getting tight, and he sets the Coke down so he doesn't crush it in his clenching fists. Breathless, he says, “I don’t - want to talk about that.” He tries to tamp down the panic attack he feels just below the surface. He doesn't know why he’s reacting this way. He _shouldn't_ be reacting this way, it’s been months. (He does know why of course he knows why oh god oh god). And it’s not like the story itself is a truly spectacular one: they were both lonely and came to each other to be less so. Stiles helped Derek with his pack, and Derek helped Stiles feel safe. Stiles got scared, pushed Derek away, and then pushed _everyone_ away, and now here they are; Derek with a strong pack that grows bigger and better connected every day, and Stiles, hiding in his house and lying to everyone he knows.

When Stiles looks up from his shaking hands (stop shaking, stop _shaking_ ), Allison is watching him with concern. “It’s okay,” she says softly, leaning forward so she can place her hand on his knee. “We don’t have to talk about it.” Stiles nods, a little desperately, and tries to get his breath back, clutching her hand like a lifeline. They stay like that for while as Stiles calms himself down from a panic attack. Stiles is grateful to Allison, who doesn't watch him as he does but lets him keep holding her hand. When he feels mostly back to normal, he releases her hand and sinks back into the couch, smiling gratefully at her. She smiles back, and then tops off the rest of her Coke. “Movie time?” she asks, and Stiles appreciates that she’s pretending that he’s fine and not pushing the issue. He nods, and she reaches for the remote.

 

 

Derek woke up to the sound of a phone vibrating.

It wasn't his own - his own he could feel digging into his butt in his back pocket, and he didn't know whose it was. He raised his head, looking down at his pack cuddling together on his bed. Erica and Boyd were both lying on their sides in a ball, their knees and foreheads pressed together. Erica’s back and tailbone were pressed against Derek’s right side, and Isaac was using his stomach as a pillow, his arms wrapping around Derek’s waist. Derek smiled down at him, at them. Even Jackson had stayed, this time, though Lydia had gone home (“You guys are weird,” she’d remarked from the door as they all settled on the Derek’s bed, but she’d sounded more fond than anything) and he’d fallen asleep sprawled across Scott and Isaac and a little bit onto Derek. Now, Derek registered that it was Scott’s phone buzzing at the same that Scott carefully started to slide out from underneath Isaac (Isaac had fallen asleep partially on Scott’s lap and partially in Derek’s - the kid had no concept of personal space. Not that Derek minded) and Jackson, so as not to wake them. The phone stopped vibrating before Scott was out of the bed, but it started again almost immediately after it stopped. Scott managed to slither out from under them, landing in a puddle at the foot of the bed. Derek closed his eyes as Scott stood, settling in the living room area before he pulled out his phone.

“Hello?” Scott whispered. Derek rolled his eyes behind his closed eyelids; if Scott’s bumbling around hadn't woken the betas, then it wasn't likely that his talking would. Still, he didn't comment because he didn't want Scott to know he was awake and listening. Their trust was a tentative thing, and he didn't want to try it yet.

“Scott,” Allison said from the other end, and from that one word Derek could tell that Scott was in deep trouble. Scott must have realized it too, because his jittering leg stilled. “What’s going on with Stiles?”

“What do you mean?” Scott asked, puppy-like confusion in his voice. Derek was tense in his bed, his arm squeezing a little too tight around Isaac’s shoulders. He wanted to launch himself from the bed, yank the phone from Scott’s hands, and demand that she tell him what was happening with Stiles. He didn’t have the right anymore, though, so he stayed where he was in the bed, eyes closed and listening.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Allison’s voice was flat, and Scott’s only response was to cough weakly. “Scott. I spent maybe four hours with him and I can see that something is very wrong. How many times a week do you see him? Don’t answer that. I’ll just get more pissed at you.”

“I’m sorry,” Scott offered feebly, and Allison scoffed.

“Of course you are, you’re in the doghouse. My point though is that something is very, very wrong. He eats like a bird - he seemed so goddamn proud of himself for eating two slices of pizza, when six months ago I watched him eat almost an entire pizza by himself. And he’s so thin now, I’m afraid he’s going to shatter the next time he walks into something. Is he even sleeping? Do you know? His eyes are practically sunken into his head, and those bruises under his eyes look painful.” Derek swallowed thickly, the backs of his eyes stinging, and forced himself to keep listening. Scott, too, seemed very tense, not hardly daring to move a muscle. “And what’s worse than all that is how subdued he is. He sits so still now, so tight. He smiles all the time but it’s so tight, and I can’t even remember if he laughed at all the whole night. He only cracked a joke once. It’s like - like he’s not even trying anymore. Like he’s given up.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Scott said eventually, having gotten his breath back faster than Derek managed to.

“Well, you wouldn't know, would you, since you aren't paying any attention. God, Scott. I know that pack is important and you’re all cuddle buddies together now, but _Stiles_ is important, too, and you have to take care of him. You make time for me, so why can’t -”

“I do make time for him!” Scott protested, but it’s weak.

“Then pay _attention_ ,” Allison snapped. Her voice was marginally softer when she spoke next. “He needs you, Scott. He doesn’t really have anyone else.”

Scott swallowed, the sound loud in the room. Isaac squirmed a little, and Derek realized that he was still gripping him hard enough to bruise. He released his hold enough that Isaac breathed easier but Derek still got the comfort. “Okay. I will. I just - I forgot.”

“You forgot,” Allison said flatly. “Well, don’t do it again.”

“I won’t.”

When Allison finally spoke again, her voice was soft and low. “I just - I’m worried about him, Scott. We’ve never really been close, but I still care. I mean, God.” She exhaled, long and gusty. “He had a panic attack tonight, Scott.” Scott sucked in a harsh breath, and Derek froze in the bed. “It took him a long time to calm down.”

“What was it about? What triggered it?” Scott demanded.

Allison hesitated. “I - I asked him. About Derek. About what happened.”

Derek felt like he’d been punched in the gut. All the breath whooshed out of him, and he took his hand from Isaac’s shoulder to cover his mouth so that the sound didn’t leak out. Slowly, he forced himself to breathe.

“Well,” Scott said. He sounded defeated. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

They were quiet. Jackson and Isaac had snuggled closer in the course of Scott and Allison’s conversation, and were now both laying splayed across Derek’s front, Isaac’s arm slung across Erica to pull her and Boyd closer. Now, Derek was in the middle of a beta sandwich, and it took him a moment to realize that they’d shifted closer to him because they’d unconsciously sensed his distress, and something felt tight and warm in his chest.

Scott cleared his throat, after a long while. “I’ll - do something with him. We’ll go to a movie, or some shit, I don’t know. But I’ll - talk to him.”

Allison sounded relieved. “Thank you.”

“You should go to bed, Ally. It’s late.”

Now she sounded fond. “I know, Scott. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Ally,” Scott said, and hung up.

He stayed sitting on the couch for another minute, breathing a little heavily, before he stood and  crawls back into the bed, sliding behind Jackson. Softly, he said, “I’ll take care of him, Derek. I promise.”

Derek nodded, touched and a little startled, and reached out blindly to pull Scott closer, his hand soft in the other boy’s curls. They fell asleep around the same time, and when he woke up before the other betas, soft morning light coming in through the windows behind them, he took a breath and reminded himself that he had this now, and that it was enough. Breathing came easier, and surrounded by warmth, he fell back asleep.

 

 **From Scott, 10:35am** hey man movies on thurs? we havent seen that new marvel one yet and i know u want 2

 **To Scott, 10:41am** really??

 **From Scott, 10:42am** yeah man of course its been a while u wanna?

 **To Scott, 10:45am** ….. (typing)

  …...

 **To Scott, 11:16am** just the two of us right?

 **From Scott, 11:17am** of course man who else???

 **To Scott, 11:19am** ….. (typing)

 **To Scott, 11:51am** k there’s a 1pm showing that cool?

 **From Scott, 11:51am** yeah man let’s do it!!1!

 **To Scott, 12:01pm** pick you at at 12:30

 **To Scott, 12:01pm** be ready on time loser im not gonna be late

 **From Scott, 12:02pm** yeah yeah i got it ill be on time

 **From Scott, 12:06pm** see u then bro :)

 **To Scott, 12:12pm** see you scotty

 

“Man, that was awesome! So many explosions!” Scott exclaims, then pantomimes an explosion with his hands, making sound effects with his mouth. Stiles laughs, shaking his head fondly as he drives. He’d missed this a lot more than he’d realized.

They spend a few more minutes talking easily (Stiles notices that Scott doesn't bring up Derek or his pack at all, though he knows that’s who he does things with the most, but he doesn't bring them up either and he appreciates the gesture), before Scott announces, “I have got to pee so bad, man. We need to find someplace to stop.”

Stiles gives him a look. “We were just at the theater, like, thirty minutes ago!” Beacon Hills has it’s own movie theater, but the theater one town over has way cheaper tickets and since they’re both broke it’s where they usually go.

“But I didn't have to _go_ then, Stiles!” He whines, and Stiles laughs a little just at his tone. “Come on, you know how I am! I’ll be wetting myself in like 5 minutes!”

Stiles sighs. “We just barely entered Beacon Hills. We’re like twenty minutes from either of our houses, Scott. What do you want me to do? Pull into one of the skeevy gas station right on the edge of town?”

Scott shakes his head vehemently and purses his lips in thought, bouncing in the seat. Stiles smiles affectionately, facing the road. He glances back just in time to see Scott’s face light up with an idea. “I know where we can go! Here, turn right here.”

Stiles follows Scott’s directions blindly. He’s not as familiar with this part of town, but he knows that Allison and her dad moved after Victoria’s death, so maybe their new apartment is somewhere this way. He keeps following Scott’s directions, and it’s not until they pull into the parking lot of an industrial building that he realizes where they are (he tries not to remember the afternoons on his computer looking at apartments with Derek, and then the subsequent trips around town looking at them, about how domestic it had all been) (he fails).

Sensing his distress, Scott shoots him an apologetic look as he unbuckles his seat belt. “Sorry man, it was the closest place I could think of. Five minutes, I promise.” Before Stiles can say anything in response - not that he’s come up with one yet, he’s still kind of in shock - Scott vaults out of the jeep and practically runs into the building.

It takes Stiles a moment of just sitting and staring to pull his keys from the ignition and look around. The lot doesn't have a ton of cars in it, so it’s easy to pick out Jackson’s Porsche and the noticeable lack of Derek’s Camaro. He breathes a small sigh of relief at that, but the feeling doesn't last.

He’s here. Stiles has spent all summer avoiding this place and these people, and now he shows up a few weeks before school starts for a goddamn pee run. He’s going to kill Scott when he gets back, after he tamps down his rising panic.

When it starts to feel like it’s been a while, he checks the time on his phone and confirms that Scott’s been in there for fifteen minutes. He’s clenching and unclenching his fists and debating whether or not it’s worth it to go inside and get him, when there’s a knock on his window. Stiles jumps, tossing his phone up in fright, and looks straight into the face of Derek Hale.

He’s just standing by the car, looking in at Stiles. He’s got a paper sack of groceries in his arm - Stiles can see a bag of chips as well as some bread and eggs sticking out - and he’s got this confused and slightly dismayed expression on his face. When Stiles finally thinks to stop staring right back at him and roll down his window, Derek’s voice is wrecked when he asks, “What are you doing here, Stiles?”

Stiles flinches and tries to cover it by scratching the back of his neck. His heart is pounding and it’s worse because he knows that Derek can hear it. (He tries not to think about how Derek looks almost the same except better, less tired around the eyes and more relaxed in the forehead. He’s kind of crinkly now, frowning, and it’s Stiles fault oh god oh god he needs to leave he has t-). “Scott and I went to movie,” Stiles explains, clearing his throat and trying to sound casual. “He’s inside peeing. I’m just - waiting.”

Derek just keeps looking at him, something keen and terrible in his expression. “How long have you been waiting?” he asks, and Stiles flinches again, unable to hide it this time. He doesn't respond, just pulls out his phone and texts Scott, _it’s been more than five minutes dude come on_. Scott doesn't respond, and he knows Derek is still there, watching him, so eventually he looks up and says the first thing that comes to mind, which is, “You look good,” and then promptly blushes and wants to punch himself in the face.

Derek’s cheeks pink just a little, and Stiles hurries to continue, “I mean - yeah, like that, but I meant like, happy. Less murderous.” Derek’s eyes are wide now, his mouth slightly parted. God, Stiles is bad at this. He clears his throat again, looking at his hands. “It’s good,” he says, his voice subdued. “I’m happy for you. You - you deserve this.”

When he looks up again, Derek’s expression is inexplicably tender, eyes soft on Stiles’ face. He dips his head in acknowledgement. “Thank you,” he says quietly. He looks like he wants to say something else, so Stiles waits. He texts Scott again without looking down,   _seriously dude please come back down i can’t be here_. The light is still blinding and bright, the summer sun clinging high in the sky for as long as possible. These days, it sets sometime after 8, which makes Stiles feel like he’s not staying up so late because it’s only like or 6 hours after the sun sets, right?

Derek speaking again interrupts Stiles’s thoughts. “You - it’s good to see you here,” he says, and Stiles breath catches in his throat. He checks the time on his phone with suddenly shaking hands (God, just stop _shaking_ ), and Scott’s now been inside for over twenty minutes. His chest feels tight. He needs to leave. He _needs_ to.

Suddenly Derek’s hand is on his shoulder, and when Stiles looks up his expression is concerned. “Stiles?” he asks, his eyebrows creased.

Stiles jerks from under his hand, trying to shove his keys in the ignition with still shaking hands. “I can’t be here, I’m sorry,” and the keys somehow get in and the ignition catches and he doesn't realize he’s still muttering, “I’m sorry, I’m _sorry_ ,” until Derek says, still just outside the car, “Stiles, it’s okay, I’ll make sure Scott gets home,” and Stiles just nods and nods and hardly even checks that Derek isn't in the gonna-get-run-over range before he’s pulling away.

He does however make the mistake of checking in his rear view mirror, and there is Derek, standing alone in the lot still staring after him, expression concerned and faintly wistful.

 

 

Of course it figures that his father’s cruiser is in the driveway when he gets home, so he spends a moment trying to get his breathing back to normal. His father’s cop sense must be tingling though - Stiles did just drive twenty minutes on city streets _during a panic attack_ \- because just a moment before Stiles is under control again, his father peeks through the window. His expression changes so quickly that Stiles isn't sure what it was to begin with, just that it jumps immediately to concern, and Stiles is so goddamn _tired_ of people’s pity. He squeezes his fists so tight that his nails hurt his palms, but by the time his dad comes outside to check on him, he’s not such a mess.

“Stiles? Kiddo?” He sounds hesitant, which might be worse than everything else, that his dad isn't even sure about saying his name. “Are you okay?”

Stiles nods, not looking up from his lap, from his clenched hands. He knows that his dad will notice them, knows that once he notices something he’ll notice the other things, the knobs of his wrists and hollows in his face that go beyond his natural sharpness, but he’s just gotten his breath back, and it feels nice to be seen for once. (Not the way Derek had seen, not the way Derek had always seen him, bare and raw and utterly fucking broken, and Stiles can’t think of the first time that he’d stopped minding that intimacy, but he knows that he’s back to it now).

In the end, his father doesn't say anything, just helps Stiles down from the jeep with a tentative hand on his elbow, leads him inside. They have a quiet dinner together, and the Sheriff doesn't bring up the state that he found Stiles in, or the fact that he was supposed to be out with Scott (who had texted during dinner _shit im so srry man_. When Stiles had ignored it - it had taken Scott more than hour to notice, he was feeling justified - he texted again _really man im so sorry ill make it up to you_ ), or Stiles’ upcoming birthday. Instead, they sit, and eat the grilled chicken and asparagus that Stiles had prepared, and discuss the deputies at the station and the latest sports, and even if it isn't honest, it is nice, and at this point Stiles will take what he can get.

 

  
  
Several hours later, when Scott texts again, _stiles please,_ he doesn't reply.


	2. place the call, feel it start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles wakes to the smell of maple syrup and bacon.
> 
> He blinks, the light feeling too bright on his tired eyes. He rolls over onto his other side, groaning, and checks the time on his phone and it’s like the date is yelling at him. Suddenly the sound of his dad in the kitchen in the morning - one that he hasn’t heard in months, since even before the werewolf shit probably - makes a lot more sense.
> 
> Or
> 
> The one with birthdays, school, and rising action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 has finally arrived! School kind of ate me alive and then took a while to spit me back out, that's why the wait was so long. I'm really sorry!
> 
> Before we begin:  
> 1\. The mythology really comes into play in this chapter. Though most of it is in canon in some way, I twisted it to my own devices. Especially the term druid, just ignore canon for that.  
> 2\. I made up my own dates for birthdays and anniversaries.  
> 3\. This chapter is longer than the previous one by a few thousand words.  
> 4\. I fondly called this chapter "the plot thickens" while I was writing it: that mean there will be some more intense elements included. By more intense I mean dead bodies and some blood and violence and villains being villainous. I don't think anything is too graphic since I'm the most squeamish person on the planet, but if I need to add any more tags let me know.
> 
> As always, this is unbeta'd so let me know if you spot any mistakes. Enjoy!

Stiles wakes to the smell of maple syrup and bacon.

He blinks, the light feeling too bright on his tired eyes. He rolls over onto his other side, groaning, and checks the time on his phone (under four hours he’s been in this bed, under four), and it’s like the date is yelling at him. Suddenly the sound of his dad in the kitchen in the morning - one that he hasn’t heard in months, since even before the werewolf shit probably - makes a lot more sense. _At least_ , Stiles thinks with some amount of relief, _no one has texted me yet_. He rolls over again, this time onto his back, and throws an arm over his eyes.

Birthdays were always his mom’s thing. His dad didn’t really have any family left around, and most of his mother’s family was still in Poland, so her attitude about birthdays was always a “we three against the world” kind of a thing. She threw parties, always, invited the whole Sheriff’s department over, too, but to her it was always more about the birthday pancakes and two or three gifts on the table in the morning. When Stiles started school, the McCall’s were included in some birthday things too - a dinner, usually, or simply just invited to the barbeque - but Stiles and his dad hadn’t celebrated a birthday like that since his mom died.

(His mom died in February and his birthday was at the end of summer. That first year when Scott asked, “Are we doing anything for your birthday?” Stiles punched him in the nose and spent his birthday that year in the ER getting a cast for his broken thumb.) (Scott didn’t ask about birthdays again).

Groaning, Stiles pulls himself from the bed and shuffles into the bathroom. He spends a moment standing in front of the mirror just staring at his reflection, trying to see her in his face. People always said that he looked more like his mom than his dad, but now he just sees the bags under his eyes and the fact that he hasn’t shaved in a while, how sharp his cheekbones are, like hers were, at the end. Sighing, Stiles reaches for the razor and shaves first his face, and then his hair, so it’s back in the buzzcut. He hops in the shower afterward, and when he finally makes his way downstairs, his dad does a double take from the stove.

“I thought you were growing it out?” he says, gesturing to Stiles’ head, but he doesn’t say it like a question. In answer, Stiles just shrugs, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Wasn’t feeling it,” is all he says, and his dad nods like he understands and flips a pancake.

They eat mostly in silence. There’s a wrapped present sitting on the plate at the unoccupied third seat but his dad won’t look at it or him, really, and Stiles isn’t sure that he can bear to open it. They sit, and they eat their pancakes, and Stiles doesn’t even argue when his dad reaches for a third piece of bacon, but it feels hollow and he’s not sure how to fix it.

Eventually, his dad clears his throat, and Stiles looks up. His gaze is focused on Stiles’ plate and the last few bits of his second pancake that he’s swirling around in a puddle of syrup. “I’ve got to go in to work,” he says, and Stiles nods. He’s not sure how his dad sees it (or if he even does, honestly, because he’s not sure that it would matter at this point) since he doesn’t look up, but he still nods in acknowledgement, and then he clears his throat again and stands. Stiles feels him hesitate behind his chair and sees his outstretched hand in his peripheral vision, and he flinches involuntarily (he is thinking of a dank basement and the hum of electricity and the taste of blood in his mouth). His dad moves away before he can say _wait_ or _please_ or _come back I miss you so much and I feel like I’m drowning_ , and he’s grateful in a way but mostly just lonely.

His dad leaves a moment later, muttering out a quick, “see ya later, kid,” before he’s gone. The door bangs closed behind him, and Stiles is left alone staring down an unopened present at the kitchen table.

 

Derek doesn’t intend to end up at the Stilinski house. It’s just - he couldn’t sleep last night and so he went for a routine patrol, and his feet lead him here as the sun came up. He sits in the treeline and listens to the distressed sound of Stiles’ breathing (distressed, even in his sleep, and god if that doesn’t make Derek’s heart hurt). He doesn’t go up, though he wants to. When Stiles wakes up hours later, he’s still there, listening. He tries not to eavesdrop on his conversation with his father, but it doesn’t seem like they’re saying much anyway; which might be worse, now that he thinks about it, at least for Stiles.

He steps closer, almost without meaning to, until he’s sitting against the back of the house (thinking, _only a few feet more and I could touch him_ , and oh, is that a dangerous vein to allow himself to go in). He’s sitting close enough to Stiles that he smells the salt before he registers Stiles’ hitching breath, and he clenches his clawed fists so hard that he makes himself bleed. He wants to go in there more than anything else, but he doesn’t have that right (Stiles took it from and he doesn’t know why but he wants it _back_ ). Derek deliberates for some moments, trying to think past Stiles’ soft tears inside. He can’t call Scott, because that was an absolute disaster two days ago, and though he thinks about calling Lydia he’s not sure how well that would go for either of them, since she’s still convinced that Stiles is in love with her.

His mind catches for a moment on an idea, an echo of _but Stiles is important, too, Scott_ , and he texts Lydia before he can second guess himself.

Derek steps a bit away from the house when he makes the call. Inside, Stiles is working to calm his own breathing, but his voice shakes as he counts up to four to himself and he doesn’t usually make it before a sob interrupts. He listens to the dial tone and fiddles with the hem of his shirt (Stiles’ shirt, from _my cousin, Miguel_ , but it still smells like Stiles), and he almost fears she’s not going to pick up when he gets a wary but wakeful, “Hello? Who is this?”

He breathes a brief sigh of relief, out through his nose _three two one_ seconds before he makes himself regroup . He says, “Allison, it’s Derek. No, please don’t hang up - it’s about Stiles.”

Allison’s call takes him by surprise.

Stiles is determined to treat it like any other day, so after he cleans up from breakfast (cleans up himself, pretends he didn’t have a mini breakdown, pretends he didn’t leave the present where it was) he takes all the books he’s borrowed and heads over to Deaton’s. The veterinarian doesn’t seem surprised to see him, and Stiles can’t tell if that’s because he doesn’t know what today is to Stiles or if he’s just used to Stiles’ peculiarness by now. He struggles to get his books in the door - they’re giant tomes more than books and Stiles himself isn’t very large, and Deaton doesn’t help because he’s secretly a big piece of  shit - but he gets in the door all right eventually.

He’s reading through some new books and taking notes (Deaton said to be looking for pack dynamics like Stiles wouldn’t know he meant “I don’t what the hell to expect with the Alpha pack”) when his phone rings, and he jumps and flails so hard that his pencil accidentally gets flung across the room and smacks Deaton straight in between his eyebrows. Stiles shrinks in on himself a little bit before Deaton even glares at him, so the glare he gets is probably softer than it normally would be. He goes for his phone when Deaton goes back to the kitten he’s examining, sees _ally crazypants argent_ and answers even as he’s thinking _I should change that._

“Hello?” Stiles says. He wishes he had his pencil just to fiddle with, because now that he’s done with the fumble of the moment he’s thinking _what happened, who’s hurt._ “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?” Allison asks, genuine confusion in her voice, and Stiles deflates (thinks, _hyper vigilance_ ). “I was calling about cupcake pans.”

“I thought something had - wait, what?”

“Cupcake pans,” Allison says, patient and a little bewildered, but that’s more than how most people are with Stiles, and he’s disproportionately grateful for a moment that of all the people Scott had to fall ridiculously in love and then subsiquently stir up a whole shitstorm with, he ended up with this one. “Specifically, yours.”

Stiles blinks, and tries to make sense of it, and then blinks again. “Huh?” he says intelligently.

“I want to make cupcakes, but I can’t find our pans. They probably got lost in the move or something, I don’t know, but we don’t have them and I kind of remember seeing some at yours? Can I borrow them?” He opens his mouth to talk, but she keeps going. “Or even better, we could make them together!”

Stiles say, “Um.”

Allison pauses for a second, and then says, “That was kind of a lot, sorry,” and Stiles remembers that they have never been good at being friends with each other, and thinks that he would like to be.

“No, no, it’s cool. Steamrolling is just usually my thing, so um - not that that’s what you were doing! God!” He’s put his foot in his mouth once again, but Allison is laughing, so he figures it’s mostly cool. “But. Um. Cupcakes. Sound good. At my house?” She makes a vaguely affirming sound, so Stiles continues, “I’m not home right now. But um, I’ll text you when I leave? Yeah.”

“Sounds good,” Allison says, about fourteen shades brighter now than the last time she said words to him, and he’s still kind of flushing with relief when they hang up a moment later.

Deaton is watching him, something vaguely fond on his face, and says, “You’re welcome to leave whenever you like.” He pauses. “That was the Argent girl, yes?”

Stiles narrows his eyes, because something in Deaton’s tone changed at the end in a way that he doesn’t like. “Yes, it was. And I will leave whenever I feel like, and you won’t ask me any more questions about her, and because you’re going to hold up your end so nicely, I’ll give you this one answer free: she’s my friend, and if you decide she’s a threat or whatever that tone was about, I’ll use everything you’ve been teaching me to make life difficult for you.” Deaton’s eyebrows rise. “I mean, I might not be powerful enough yet to do much damage, but I could give you a nasty rash. Or like, change the labels on your spice containers or something.” Deaton just nods, eyebrows still way up on his forehead (he uses his eyebrows like Derek does, and Stiles doesn’t let himself miss Derek like he wants to when he thinks that), and turns back to the kitten.

 

Derek doesn’t spend the whole day outside of Stiles’ house, because he’s not a complete creeper.

After he calls Allison, he stays long enough to make sure that Stiles is going to be okay (as okay as he was before, which Derek is starting to realize means _not very_ ) and then he runs back to his loft. It’s still relatively early, just after nine by the time he gets there, so Boyd is the only one of his betas that’s awake and he’s making coffee in the kitchen when Derek walks in the door. He raises his eyebrows judgmentally when Derek walks in (in his head, he hears Stiles say, “they’re going to learn to use them just like you do, and when they employ their full power of judgement and angst on you you’ll have no one to blame but yourself,” and deliberately turns his thoughts in another direction), but he doesn’t say anything. Derek just nods on his way past him and climbs in the shower, and when he gets out most of the betas are stirring upstairs in the guest bed. When they all emerge, a sleepy and tactile Isaac plasters himself over Derek’s back and buries his nose in the hair at the nape of Derek’s neck, while Scott gives Derek a wide berth on his way to get coffee (still wary, after Derek’s stony silence when he left Stiles alone on Thursday). Erica doesn’t even appear to notice, crawling bare-legged in a long t-shirt into Boyd’s lap on the couch and stealing his coffee.

Derek just smiles a little and ruffles Isaac’s hair before he pushes a coffee into his hands and deposits him on the couch with Erica and Boyd. He looks at Scott and wills his expression not to harden, wills himself not to lose his smile, and it seems to work because Scott slumps in relief and nods as he shuffles past.

They spend a lazy afternoon together, the betas playing Mario Kart (in a move out of left field, Boyd beats all of them) while Derek works on his laptop at the kitchen table, trying not to think about how he left Stiles and trying not to get distracted by Erica’s continued attempts to antagonize him. Some time after lunch, Jackson and Lydia show up, smelling so intensely of each other that Derek isn’t the only one that wrinkles his nose. Lydia just laughs, pats the smirk off Jackson’s face, and heads into Derek’s kitchen. A moment later, she emerges with more snacks, and proceeds to beat everyone at Mario Kart.

When night falls and they move to start a movie, Derek turns off his laptop and stands. He goes over to his bed and hesitantly pulls a package wrapped in brown paper from under his bed. He picks up some of Lydia’s pink sticky notes and a pen, and then he grabs his leather jacket and his keys, goes to stand behind the couch. Hand buried in Isaac’s curls, he says, “I’ll be back in a while. Don’t burn the building down.”

Cheekily, Scott salutes him, and Isaac nods distractedly and removes Derek’s hand from his head, but Boyd’s eyes on him are knowing and Erica’s inquisitive, so he knows he hasn’t gotten away with it yet. He just nods, tries to threaten Boyd into silence with his eyebrows, and ducks out the door.

**  
**

Once Derek is in his car, Lydia texts him, _wish him happy birthday from me._

**  
**

When Stiles’ dad walks in, he and Allison are collapsed against the counter and each other, covered in flour and giggling.

He just stops and stares, his hand settled hesitantly on his belt - not on the gun, which is important - and watches as Stiles tries to get himself together enough to say something. Every time he thinks he’s got it, he looks at Allison and it starts up again. Finally, Allison gasps out, “We were just - trying to make - _cupcakes_ ,” and then wheezes and collapses into him. He’s breathless with laughter, and he hasn’t been this way for so long (hasn’t _laughed_ for so long, god) that he’s not quite sure where to go from here. His ribs hurt and he’s not getting enough oxygen and they’re slowly slipping down the counter to the floor, a puddle of jumbled limbs and mess.

And he hasn’t felt this light, this carefree, in a long time.

He looks up though, and his dad is still just looking at him, eyes wide but soft and his smile small but the same, and Stiles stops giggling and smiles back at him in kind. His dad nods and moves past him to the table, eyes flicking once to the still-wrapped package lying there, but he just takes off his gun belt and offers to put a pizza in the oven. Stiles nods, and, pressing against each other for leverage and almost falling over again, he and Allison push themselves to standing. “You’ve got - here,” Allison says, gesturing to Stiles’ eyebrows, her smile wide, and Stiles just shrugs, says, “I‘ve got it everywhere else, too. Not a big deal.” She smiles bigger and nods, and Stiles’ dad puts the pizza in the oven and they finish making the cupcakes with minimal incident, and when it grows late, Allison gathers her supplies and twelve poorly frosted cupcakes and goes to leave.

At the door, she stands facing him awkwardly for a moment, her bag of stuff between them, before she drops it on the floor and smothers him in a hug before he can protest, and then he doesn’t really want to, because she gives good hugs and it’s been a while since he’s been hugged at all and she smells comforting in a weird way. “This was nice,” Allison says right into his ear, and he nods and hugs her back.

After she leaves, Stiles goes back into the kitchen where his dad is sitting at the table, still smiling that smile and watching him. Stiles feels obligated to say, “It’s not - we’re not -” and his dad hold up a hand against him.

“I know,” he says. “I like her, though. I’m glad you’re friends.”

Stiles smiles, a small and pleased thing, and rubs a hand across his laugh-sore ribs. “Me too.” He grabs the present from the table and squeezes his dad’s arm on his way past, calling out, “Good night!” on his way up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs he hears a muffled sound from his room, but when he gets there everything is the same as he left it. Feeling suddenly exhausted, he slumps against the back of his closed door, the present loosely pressed to his chest. He tips his head back and closes his eyes and thinks _I could sleep right now_. He jolts a little and slinks over to his bed, sitting on the edge.

Stiles stares at the package for a while, smoothing the loose edge of the faded balloon wrapping paper over and over again with his thumb. Something feels empty in him that normally feels ruffled, like he isn’t quite connecting, so it isn’t that difficult to decide to open it and then tear the seam of the package all at once. A picture frame falls out, glass side down, so he can’t see the picture. He runs a finger along the side, and it comes away dusty.

He’s hesitant now, carefully flipping the frame over so he can see the photo, and when he does his breath catches.

There’s a note card tucked into the frame partially obscuring the photo, but even before he removes that his mother’s face is clearly visible. She’s kneeling in her garden wearing ratty gardening clothes with dirt on her face, and she’s partially turned so that her profile is facing the camera. She’s laughing just a little, and he hears the sound of it in his head; breathless and fond, these throaty giggles that sound like his own. He’s in this shot, too, dirtier than she is and so small for a ten year old. Looking at the shot, he can see how old he is, because she doesn’t look sick yet, doesn’t look tired at all as she’s reaching out to cup his smiling face in her hands, and in this picture more than most he can see how he looks like her; his cheekbones sharper than hers in this photo (she isn’t sick yet and he’s just a kid and oh how he misses those days), the color and shape of his lips and the way they look when he’s smiling, the shape of his eyes from his father and the way they sit in his face too, but the color and how they sparkle like his mother’s. (The sparkle is gone now, he thinks; he can’t think of how it could still be here now, still, after all that’s happened).

Quickly, Stiles wipes his eyes and then his nose, though there isn’t anyone around to see. He traces his fingers gently over the glass, his vision still blurry, and then he sets it softly on his bedside table. A note card flutters to the floor when he does, the tape attached sticking it to the carpet. He bends over and peels it off. It reads only two sentences, scratched in the same chicken scrawl that he’s inherited, _Found this in the garage. Love you, son_ , and Stiles is blinking back tears again. He’s wrinkling the notecard with how tightly he’s clutching it, and he falls back in the middle of his bed, still facing the room. He shifts, trying to get more comfortable, and something crinkles underneath him.

Stiles freezes, and then shifts again, listening for the same sound. It comes, and he feels underneath his back to find a lump under his blankets. Slowly, Stiles sits up again, reaching blindly under his comforter for the lump. He finds it, a vaguely squarish, soft lump wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with twine and a misshapen bow. He huffs a small laugh, fiddling with the bow, and when it comes untied he doesn’t stop it, letting the paper fall open in his lap.

At first, all he registers is red and a neon pink sticky note stuck to it. Then, all at once, he can see the shape of the hood and sleeves in the folds, and notices the soft, small handwriting on the note. He thinks, loudly, once, _Derek,_ and then he’s peeling the sticky note off and setting it aside, pulling the zip-up hoodie out of the wrapping paper. He lays it across his lap, running his fingers over the material (it’s comfortable against his skin, lightweight, but the material is durable, sturdier than any of the sweatshirts he owns), and for a while he just stares at it with blurry vision. Stiles remembers the sound he heard earlier and thinks again _Derek._

The note reads, _Gerard took it, didn’t he? The other one. Your first one. I don’t remember. But you always did want to fight the Big Bad Wolf, and now you’ve got the uniform._ The back says, in hastier handwriting, _PS Lydia says happy birthday._

Stiles laughs again, wet and breathless, clutching the note to his chest. He can see Derek so much in this, the stilted short sentences, the dry humor, can picture the softness of his eyes when he wrote it. Stiles whispers, “Thanks, Derek,” because he knows now what the sound he heard in the hallway was.

His phone buzzes on his nightstand. _Sourwolf_ lights up his screen, and he opens the text: _You’re welcome_. A moment later, it buzzes again, _happy birthday, Stiles_ , and then, quickly after, _be careful with that though. the uniform carries a certain amount of power, and you know what they say about that_. Smiling, Stiles replies, _spiderman, really?_ and Derek quickly replies _he’s your favorite, right?_ and then Stiles has to clench his fists in the material of the sweatshirt because he’s not supposed to be doing this anymore. The spell book on his dresser is a stark reminder (the book that Deaton pressed into his hands as he was leaving, his parting words an ominous, “Sometime soon you’re going to need this. Study well.”) Stiles’ smile disappears, and something heavy settles in his chest. Softly, sadly, he says, “Good night, Derek.”

 

School starts for the betas with little fanfare. Derek had worried (quietly, in the space of his head only) that when school started up again that they would all leave him again, but within the first hour of the first day Isaac texts him _everything smells so much wtf_ , and at lunch time Erica texts, _i hate you so much your cooking has spoiled me i cant even stand to think of you_ followed quickly by a text from Boyd, _she doesn’t mean that. But seriously, school food is shitty and I miss your cooking too_. Jackson and Scott don’t text him, which doesn’t surprise him, but on the third day Lydia texts, _he’s doing okay, just so you know. He and Allison sit together. He’s not alone_ and he’d like to pretend he’s ignorant, but it seems like it would be useless at this point.

Now that they’re all gone, Derek gets a lot more work done in the mornings (one day Isaac texts him _i don’t even know what you do for a living how did i never bother to ask i am terrible_ and Derek snorted milk out his nose before he replied _I’m an editor._ Anticipating further questions, he quickly replied, _I had in internship in NYC and I left before I could finish my degree, but I finished it this summer and picked up another job from someplace NYC based._ After that, they were all asking him for help with English). The betas still come over after school when they can, whether it’s needing someplace to work on their homework or get his help on it, or if they need a break. Lydia further informs him - quietly, in the kitchen one day - that Stiles still hasn’t made up with Scott. “He seems fine,” Lydia says, pensive, “but fine in a way that makes me think that’s exactly what he wants me to think,” and Derek has to swallow thickly before he can manage to reply.

Eventually, Derek is forced to inform the betas about the threat of the Alpha pack - they’ve been leaving dead animals at some of their houses, apparently - but he stays vague about it, only half because he doesn’t want them to know. After he tells them, he goes to Deaton, because he knows shit about how they work or what they want.

Deaton is surprisingly unhelpful, but he seems frustrated by this. “As far as I can tell,” he tells Derek, eyebrows low over his eyes as he glares at an ancient, dusty book lying open on his desk, and Derek has to force himself to focus, because this place smells like Stiles, “they still have a very similar pack hierarchy, just different. They’re not as - _connected_ as a real pack, since they’re closer to allies than anything else.”

“How do they get anything done?” Derek asks. “If they have no real leader, and they’re all alphas?”

“Well, and here’s the trouble. I can only theorize, because I’ve never actually had a direct encounter with any of them,” and he sounds pained by this, that he has no real knowledge, “but I believe that there’s one alpha who is more powerful than the rest, and they follow him.” At Derek’s confused look, he continues, “To become an alpha, one must kill an alpha. But from what I’ve heard, to be in this alpha pack, one has to kill their entire pack and absorb their power.” He’s grimacing now, and Derek feels like he might throw up. “So the most powerful alpha will be the one who has killed the most of their pack members.”

“Jesus,” Derek says faintly, and Deaton nods. He swallows and regroups, trying to think like a strategist ( _like Stiles_ , he thinks) so that he doesn’t get backed into a corner again like he did with the Kanima, with Gerard. “So how do we fight them? If they’re more powerful than all of us?”

“Well, that depends on what they want. At this point, I can’t tell. So far it seems as though they’re here for your pack, from all the animals they’ve been killing, leaving all over the Preserve -”

“The Preserve?” Derek interrupts, because he hadn’t known about those, and Deaton glances at him.

“Yes. I noticed them last time I went out to the nemeton. Anyway,” and Derek interrupts again.

“Nemeton?” Derek repeats. He knows what it is; when he was a kid, they would all go once a year to the tree and give it a drop of their blood. “It gives us power,” his mother used to say, “because we give it power.” He has a somewhat blurry understanding of the nemeton does, but as far as he knows it’s a power source of some old magic, a protector of the region and a balance keeper. Slowly, Derek says, “Is it possible that the tree is what they’re here for?”

Deaton stiffens, staring at Derek. Eventually, he says in a muted voice, “I hadn’t considered that. I’ll have to - I’ll look into it.” Derek nods, but doesn’t leave; Deaton seems like he’s having epiphany, and he doesn’t want to miss it. Mumbling, he says, “I suppose that would make sense, wouldn’t it? It’s not - hmm. So maybe they want to - hmm. Yes, quite interesting.” He looks up and seems to realize Derek is still here, and he waves a hand at him. “I’ll have to do more research, consult Mister Stilinski, see what we come up with. I’ll get back to you.”

Derek nods, thinking of Stiles’ smell so heavy in this vet’s office, and suddenly a lot of things make sense to him. He nods again before he ducks out the door.

**  
**

Danny plops his tray down on the table next to Stiles so hard that Stiles accidentally knocks his milk over. Calmly, Danny picks it back up before it spills everywhere and passes a wide-eyed Stiles a handful of napkins. “Hi,” Danny says, and tucks into his meal. Out of the corner of his eye, Stiles can see Allison making significant eyes from across the table, but he’s just staring at Danny. Finally, Stiles sputter out, “What are you doing here?”

“I thought it was pretty obvious,” Danny says, and meets Stiles eyes before he shrugs and takes another bite of his sandwich. “I’m eating.”

Stiles sputters again. Allison says, “I think Stiles means at our table,” and glances over Danny’s shoulder to the table where everyone else is sitting. Stiles sighs and picks at the lettuce on his sandwich. Somehow, literally all of them ended up with the same lunch. He isn’t sure how; their schedules aren’t the same at all. Stiles has one class with Scott, two classes with Isaac (one of which is the one with Scott which - it hurts, a little, to see them close the way Scott and Stiles used to be, when they were ScottandStiles). He has a few more classes with Boyd, who’s on the advanced track, a blessed half with Allison, and most of them with Lydia, because she’s taking all the same AP classes as he is. Surprisingly, Lydia isn’t avoiding him, and he doesn’t know why, but something about the way she looks at him is more assessing than he’d like.

Allison kicks him lightly under the table, and he snaps back out of his head, schooling his features into something more neutral. Danny’s looking at him too, but in the end he just shrugs again. “Something’s different about all of them this year, I don’t know. I mean, I knew McCall and Jackson had made up or whatever, but I feel like - I don’t know. Like they know something I don’t,” and Stiles resists sharing a look with Allison out of sheer force of will. “So I just - I have classes with you guys. It’s cool, right?” For the first time, Danny looks a little unsure, holding his sandwich halfway to his mouth and meeting first his eyes and then Allison’s.

Stiles clears his throat. “Of course, Danny-boy,” even as he’s tucking the spell book in his lap back into his backpack. Danny nods, smiling his million-watt Danny smile, and Allison and Stiles both smile back, smaller than him.

They go back to eating, all of them, but Stiles’ mind is wandering, his food mostly remaining untouched. He’s not thinking about the nemeton or calc, both things he should be, but instead, he’s remembering something. (Remembering Derek, in so many different ways, sleeping on his bed in low light, harsh and scared trying to intimidate Stiles, and, on one memorable occasion, sitting on the lip of Stiles’ bathtub, bruised and bleeding. He was looking up at Stiles like he was something else, so Stiles just curled over him like a question mark and wiped the blood from his face.) Stiles doesn’t turn around to look, but he can feel Scott’s eyes digging into his back, can picture Lydia’s voice whispering soft concern, and he hunches his shoulders. (“Why are you doing this?” Derek asked, catching Stiles’ wrist a few inches away from Derek’s face. “I know Scott doesn’t like it.” His voice was soft, tentative around his split lip, but his eyes were focused, intense on Stiles, looking at him like _an abomination_ , that day when it all started. The white wash cloth was rusty red now, dripping watery blood down Stiles arm. Finally, Stiles made himself meet Derek’s eyes, a kaleidoscope of color. He said, “Scott doesn’t have to like it. He’s always got me, and he knows it. But you -” Stiles stopped, and swallowed, and ignored Derek’s slightly parted lips, the wonder in his eyes. “You don’t have anyone else, and Scott does.” He cleared his throat. “And you’ve always got me, too.”)

“Stiles,” Allison says, nudging him again with her foot, and he blinks and looks up at her. Her voice is gentle. “The bell just rang.”

Stiles blinks again, and then suddenly he’s back again, nodding and tucking his food and his books away in his backpack. He stands, and catches Scott’s eye where he’s standing at his table, just looking at him. His phone buzzes in his back pocket, and when he pulls it out, it’s a message from Scott. u ok? it reads, and Stiles looks up again and nods, his eyes cold. Scott deflates but nods, watching as Allison comes up next to Stiles and places her hand on his elbow, leading him out of the lunchroom to their shared next class.

(Derek just blinked up at him, his fingers loosely encircled around Stiles’ wrist, applying no pressure. Stiles felt the blush in his cheeks and looked away. Derek squeezed his wrist gently and whispered, “Thank you,” before he was leaning away, releasing Stiles’ wrist and staring at his hands like he didn’t know them anymore, now that Stiles had wiped them clean. Stiles nodded, his chest feeling warm, and heard what Derek didn’t say. _You’ll always have me too._ )

**  
**

“Stilinski!” Finstock barks, chasing after him in the hallway after school about a week later, and Stiles sighs to himself before turning around, watching as Finstock strides towards him. He knows what this is about. Coach shakes a piece of paper in his face, too quickly and too close for him to actually want Stiles to read it. “Why does it say you’re not on my cross country team this fall?”

To be honest, Stiles is only surprised that it’s taken Coach this long; they’re two weeks into the school year by now. Calmly, Stiles replies, “Because I’m not on your cross country team this fall.”

Coach just stares at him. His hair is exceptionally tall today, Stiles notices, and for a moment he misses being on a team with Coach. “You realize if you don’t do cross country, I can’t let you do lacrosse.” Stiles nods. “So why aren’t you on the team?”

Stiles shrugs. It seems like it would be too much to say, _well, I want to make a blood sacrifice to a magic tree that will tie me to the county and put me in charge of the balance of the town and I want to get it done within the next 9 months, so my afternoons are a little busy with training right now_ , so instead he just settles with, “I’m busy.”

Finstock stares at him some more. He laughs after a moment, a true Coach laugh, but he doesn’t seem to find anything very funny. “You’re joking, right?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty hilarious,” Stiles says, rubbing the back of his neck.

He didn’t mean for his voice to come out so flat, but it did, and now Coach is staring at him in a different way, assessing enough that Stiles shifts his weight a little. His eyes narrow, and he says, “Something’s changed about you, Stilinski.”

Stiles scrubs his hand through his shorn hair, buzzed again just two days ago. “Yeah, I’m trying to grow my hair out this year. Can’t you tell?”

Coach gives him an unimpressed look. “Weak, Stilinski. Go run off to Mccall, I’m sure he can talk some sense into your skinny little ass.”

 _I doubt it_ , Stiles thinks, but he limply salutes Coach anyway before he ambles away, trying to ignore Boyd staring at him from down the hall.

**  
**

It is a Thursday morning when he finds the body.

Stiles doesn’t know why - he doesn’t know. But he means to go outside to - he doesn’t know. And it is - and there it is. There she is.

She is young, older than Stiles but not by much. She is wearing these yellow rainboots (that’s what he saw first, catching his eyes), covered in mud and blood-splattered. Her long, skinny fingers are clutching the dirt and leaves of the ground below her, mud smeared up her arms, all over her body. Her eyes are open, the back of her neck propping her head up on a tree root just inside the tree line. She looks - she looks -

And she is dead.

And not just dead, but murdered. Throat slashed out, the alpha’s symbol carved crudely on the skin of her stomach, her shirt rucked up to her throat to show it. Her - he tries not to look too closely but - but - she is -

The dirt under her is mud, now, ruddy red and fresh.

Stiles throws up in the bushes before he calls Deaton.

“There’s a body,” Stiles says, almost before Deaton answers. He’s wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, paced away from the girl with his back to her. “She’s in my backyard. It’s definitely - it’s a message from the alphas. You know what this means, right? You should get over here.”

“Of course,” Deaton says, and “you should call Derek,” before he hangs up.

Stiles sits down against his back door. He can see her boots from here, shining in the leaves and sticking out of the trees. He stares at his hands. He’s been careful not to touch her, but he can feel her blood itching phantom on his skin, can still taste the bile in the back of his throat.

His hands are shaking again.

He calls Derek.

He doesn’t say much. He’s trembling. Derek answers, sounding sleepy and confused (“Stiles,” he mumbles when he answers, and for a moment Stiles is taken back four months, five months, when he woke up that way a few times a week, in the quiet of his bedroom), and Stiles talks right over him, almost repeating his conversation with Deaton. “There’s a body, in my backyard. She’s here for you - she’s a - a message from the alphas. You should - you should come see.”

“Jesus, Stiles,” Derek says. Rustling, in the background. Derek breathing into the receiver. “Shit. Stiles. I’m on my way. Are you okay?”

“I’m -” he doesn’t finish. He’s trembling. “Yeah. Just - Deaton’s coming too. Get here quick.” And he hangs up.

When Deaton gets here, he doesn’t even bother with the front doors, just comes around the front of the house, suddenly there with his rubber gloves and his kit. Stiles stays in the shadows of the house, watching Deaton’s bent form examining the body. He needs to - before Derek get here, he needs to just -

He reminds himself to breathe.

“Mr. Stilinski,” Deaton calls, and Stiles dutifully heads over to him. He forces himself to clinical, to be detached, as he examines her (examines, now, not just - not just reacts). The slash marks on her throat are obviously what killed her - which is good, because it’s quicker than bleeding out through her stomach wounds. The stomach wounds, in fact, are not deep enough to have killed at all; and they’re made with precision, clean wide lines cut into her skin, exposing just enough of what’s underneath to be gruesome. Her eyes are open, and glassy, staring at the sky unseeing.

Behind him, Derek says, “At least it doesn’t like she put up much of a fight. They - they got her before she even knew what was happening.”

Stiles doesn’t know if he thinks that’s worse or not, but he nods. He shoves his hands in his pockets to hide their shaking. He didn’t hear Derek come up, but he’s not surprised by that.

“What’s the message? Why is this for me?”

Stiles doesn’t look at Derek, but he can picture it - the furrowed brow and the tense jaw, his hands fisted at his sides. His eyes - Stiles doesn’t think about his eyes, the guilt he knows must be in them.

Deaton says, “Before - the animals, painting your loft - that was a warning. An opportunity, if you will, for you to surrender your territory. It was their way of insinuating their claim. But this - this is a declaration: they’re here to take it, now. This is a _threat_.”

Stiles swallows, pacing away again with his hands folded behind his head. He hears Derek exhale, senses the glance he sends in his direction. “And why leave it at Stiles house?”

Stiles tenses. Deaton pauses before saying, carefully, “I’m not sure,” with both of their gazes digging into his back.

He can’t look at her again, so he focuses his eyes on Deaton when he turns back around. “Are you done here?” he asks, and the man nods. “Okay then. I’m calling the police now. Derek, you’d better get out of here before they get here.”

He heads to the front of his house to make the call. He can hear them murmuring as he walks away (catches only Derek’s “why can’t I smell them? The alphas?” before he’s out of earshot), but he ignores them, collapses on the steps of his front porch. It takes him a while to remember to pull out his phone, so he’s just dialing the number when Deaton comes into his field of vision, his shoulders slumped. He looks up and nods at Stiles, looking paler than normal, and Stiles just nods back, hiding his shaking hand in between his thighs.

“Hello.” The lady on the end of the line says. “This is 911, what is your emergency?”

“Hi, Tracy,” Stiles says, distracted as Derek walks slowly around the side of the house. He seems to be heading over to Stiles instead of his car parked in the street, so Stiles focuses on the ground in front of him instead of Derek’s approaching figure. “It’s Stiles.”

Tracy huffs. “Stiles, prank calls are never funny. If you wanted to talk to your father you should have just called him.”

“It’s not a prank call,” Stiles says, as Derek comes up next to him. He hesitates, then sits down next to Stiles on the steps. He doesn’t want it (wants it too much, actually), but Derek’s warmth at his back settles something that had been rattling in his chest. Derek reaches out and places a broad palm on Stiles’ shoulder, and Stiles lets out a deep breath. “I found a body in my backyard.”

**  
**

“Why didn’t you just tell us what it meant before? Before there was a girl who was _murdered_ as a fucking _message_?” Scott shouts, and Derek flinches. “You _knew_ it was serious, you had to have known! But you’re only telling us just now! That’s such _bullshit_ , Derek! It’s bullshit!”

Behind him, Isaac whimpers, reacting unconsciously to the tension in the room, and Derek reaches blindly behind him, takes his hand in his and squeezes, once, before he focuses back on Scott. Derek makes sure to keep his chin tipped up. In his head is Stiles, with his hands on his shoulders, his quiet voice in the dark (“You’re doing the best you can. The best you know how. _Listen_ to me, Derek. You are. And I’m sorry he can’t see that,”), and Derek takes a deep, hitching breath.

Across the room on the couch with Lydia, Jackson snarls, “Like you would’ve done any different, McCall,” and Erica bares her teeth at him, causing him to shrink into the couch in silence. Derek gives Erica a grateful look before he faces Scott. Scott’s chest is heaving, but when Derek just keeps looking at him steadily, he deflates. “We’re supposed to be pack,” Scott mutters, wrapping his arms around himself. “We’re supposed to help each other out. We’re not - _you’re_ not supposed to be alone anymore, Derek.”

Derek blinks, but he holds Scott’s eyes. He waits for Scott’s breathing to steady, waits for Jackson’s and Isaac’s to calm down too, and then he breaks, staring down at his hands. “I didn’t - there was nothing you could have done. I didn’t want you to bear that burden.”

It’s a rough night. There are tears that Derek doesn’t know what to do with - he hasn’t really dealt with tears since the early days in New York with Laura. Surprisingly, it is Boyd who settles everyone, allowing Isaac to starfish across him on the couch and brokering a kind of peace treaty between Scott and Jackson without even breaking his cuddles with Isaac (“He’s going to make them talk about _feelings_ ,” Lydia says, rising from the couch and coming over to the corner where Derek and Erica are standing, and she looks delighted. “I’m so ready for this.”) Erica, when she catches Derek’s incredulous and slightly shell-shocked look, says, “Boyd has probably a million little cousins. He’s got this,” and Derek just nods, because he believes her. It is not a stretch to picture steady, solid Boyd amid a crowd of small children and taming them all.

None of them go back to their homes that night, even though it is a Thursday, not even Lydia. (Lydia, who pulls him aside and says, “I texted Allison. She’ll talk to him,” and turns away before he can get another word in.) Unlike most of their other nights, they don’t do anything, no movies or games. They just sit, on the floor or the couch or the bed, and talk, and throw food at each other. It’s loud, and there isn’t a single moment for Derek to take a breath, and he’s smothered most of the time by his betas aggressively cuddling him, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He keeps on catching himself looking over his shoulder with a smirk, or listening for a specific heartbeat, and those are the only moments when it is hard to breathe, hard not to see the absence of warm brown eyes and pale skin and moles, but - he’s getting there. He’s getting there.

**  
**

Her name was Sophie Elsworth. She was a freshman at Beacon Hills Community College, studying child development. She was last heard from by her boyfriend, who said she was on her way home after a study group at the library. And now she’s dead.

Stiles stares at the shiny surface of the table at Deaton’s, vaguely aware of the man moving around him, cleaning up for the day and muttering to himself. Stiles’ phone is buzzing in his pocket, but he doesn’t pick it up. “Deaton,” Stiles says, and his voice sounds wrong, too flat, but he can’t bring himself to fix it. He scratches at an old blood spot on the table. “Do you think it’s possible that they’re here for me? That that’s why they left her at my house? Or - not me, but the nemeton, like Derek said? Do you think they can sense it on me?”

The noise of Deaton moving stops. Deaton says, “They might be here for the nemeton, though if that was the case I feel as though I would have heard about it since it was my blood last spilt there. More likely, I think, they here for the power that the nemeton brings without being fully aware that that’s where it’s coming from.” Stiles nods, staring at his hands. They’re cold, but not trembling anymore.Carefully, Deaton continues, “I think it’s most likely that they left her at your house because - you read like Derek’s second, Stiles. In the - in the hierarchy of things.”

Stiles flinches, but he nods, because he was expecting it in some ways. If the alphas have been watching for as long as they think, then there’s no way they would have missed it - they couldn’t have missed it. “Do you think we can beat them?” Stiles asks quietly, and Deaton sighs, pulling a stool over so he can sit down across from Stiles, who still hasn’t looked up from his intense study of the metal table.

“I don’t know. I like to think so. But at this point, we don’t really know what they want, or who they are, or how far they’re willing to go to get it.”

“Well, now we have at least some of an idea of how far,” Stiles says, more acidly than he means to, and he catches Deaton’s wince in his peripheral vision. Stiles sighs and rubs a cold hand over his face. “Do we need to speed things up? Should I -”

“No,” Deaton cuts him off sharply, and Stiles looks at him full in the face for the first time. “The process of becoming a druid is dangerous, Stiles, and risky, and I won’t have you doing it just because you’re under duress.”

Stiles holds his eyes for a long moment, measuring the intensity in them and the moment they thaw. When Deaton opens his mouth again, Stiles nods once, decisively, cutting him off by standing. “Okay,” he says, quietly. “Okay. I respect that. I’ll see you tomorrow, Deaton.” And he leaves before Deaton can get another word in.

**  
**

**From ally crazypants argent, 6:35pm** shit stiles, lyds texted me. we all heard about the body but shit

 **From ally crazypants argent, 6:41pm** are you doing okay?

 **From Scott, 8:17pm** man i know ur not talking to me right now but we all heard what happened and i hope ur ok

 **From Scott, 8:56pm** i miss you man. talk to me sometime ok

**(2) missed calls from ally crazypants argent**

**From ally crazypants argent, 9:11pm** I called your house. your dad is worried about where you are.

 **From ally crazypants argent, 9:17pm** i am too. text me

**(5) missed calls from Dad**

**To ally crazypants argent and Dad, 9:54pm** on my way home now

 **To Dad, 9:59pm** i’m sorry

**  
**

Much later, when the betas are all asleep spread out across Derek’s living room floor, Derek gets to his feet and moves across the room, stepping carefully over a pile of limbs that, in the dark, looks like a Scott-Isaac tangle to get his laptop. He moves to the kitchen table and powers it on, wincing against the noise and the light that it makes, but they don’t stir. He clicks open the document titled _bestiality yoo - scott doesn’t know things_ that Stiles downloaded onto his computer. It’s not organized in any way, no real order to it all, so it takes him a while to find what he’s looking for, but he does, eventually.

 _Druids_ , it reads, undefined. _Little known lore. Said to be protectors of region and nature, connected to land in complex and yet undefined ways. Qualifications and powers unknown. Qualifier, updated 7/23/1987: in order to connect to land, must remain uninhibited by other supernatural ties or bond is rejected._

(“I’m not in your pack, Derek,” Stiles spit, standing over him and making him feel small in a way he never had before. “Is that what you thought?” He scoffed, and Derek just stared at him, wide-eyed and blindsided by this cruelty, and unsure of the lie in it. “I _can’t_ be in your pack. I couldn’t bear it.” But there was no lie, no stutter in his heart even though Derek saw the shaking in his hands. “It’s been a good run. But the terms of our deal have been met, and I want you to get out.” Here, his heart skipped, but Stiles was correcting himself before Derek could call him on it. “I _need_ you to get out.” And Derek did, nodding and collecting his things and numb with shock, climbing out the window before he could think of the difference between _I can’t be in your pack_ and _I want you to get out_ and _I need you to get out_ , because only one of those was lie and why why why -)

On the page, _must remain uninhibited by other supernatural ties is yelling at him. Protector_ , it says. _Protector._

Derek shuts his laptop and sits back, biting down hard on his bottom lip. He leans forward on his elbows. Scrubs his hands through his hair, over his face. “God,” he murmurs, soft and breathless. Druid. That’s what this is about. He thinks of Stiles, the spell of his panic and his loneliness so strong in the parking lot, of Stiles crying alone at the table in his home. _Protector._

Derek stands and goes back to the living room, leaving his laptop on the table. He lays back where he was, and immediately Erica and Boyd roll back into him. He wraps his arms around them on instinct and closes his eyes, and forces himself to relax, but he just keeps thinking - he just.

 _Druid._ (“I can’t be in your pack.”) _Must remain uninhibited by other supernatural ties._

Protector.

*

A month passes, a quiet month where Stiles is so tense he’s surprised he hasn’t just snapped in half. There are three more bodies (adding to Sophie Elsworth are Lincoln Johnson, Teddy Burgin, and Lily Green, all murdered in the same way), left at Deaton’s clinic, the high school, and one at Derek’s family home that Stiles is the one to discover on his way out to the nemeton. He’s not sleeping, really, smothering his shaking hands in coffee and pages and pages of notes and theories and runes to practice. His father is starting to look more tired, too, and Stiles can hardly look him in the eyes anymore. He goes to school and sits with Allison and Danny and sometimes Lydia at lunch, sits nexts to Boyd in some of his classes (Boyd, who rarely talks to him but always volunteers to be his partner and makes him deeply uncomfortable in a scrutinized kind of way), and then he goes straight to the clinic, where he works on homework and spells and strategy in the quiet of Deaton’s company. On the days that Scott works at the clinic, he does the same at Allison’s, and then he goes home, to cook for his father on the nights that he’s home or to pace and not sleep and try not to break on the nights when he’s alone.

“I wish they would just _do_ something,” Stiles says to Deaton one day, the day after Teddy’s body is found. His fingers are tapping incessantly against the table to hide their shaking. “I can’t deal with this - I can’t fight back against this. There’s nothing for me to _do_ ,” and Deaton just watches him with careful eyes.

“Don’t say that too loudly,” Deaton says, drily, “or they’ll hear you, and then you’ll regret it.”

He runs into Derek a few times, at the grocery store mostly, the library once, and, when Stiles finds Lily’s body, he talks to Derek then, too. He gets the feeling more now than he did before that Derek sees him, like he did before Stiles - before, and Stiles doesn’t know what to do (he was hiding, before, behind the fact that he’d crushed Derek’s heart, that he was holding all the cards and he doesn’t have that anymore and it hurts to be out in the open and god he just wants to _sleep_ -)

“Stiles,” Deaton groans, three days after Lily’s body is discovered - hers, more brutal than the others, throat ripped out just the same but her stomach, too, and her intestines taken out of her body and placed next to her shaped into the alpha’s symbol - and Stiles hasn’t slept since he found her. His leg is jittering and his pencil is tapping against the tabletop and he’s blinking and blinking and his other hand is shoved between his legs because it shakes too much to be used for anything anyway. “You need to get out of here. You’re driving me insane.”

Instantly, Stiles stills, dropping his eyes to the runes he’s drawn into the margin of his math homework. Runes for protection and peace, that he’s drawn darkly and without thinking. “Sorry,” he mutters, and Deaton sighs.

“The used bookstore, on Main Street. You know it?” Stiles nods, looking cautiously at Deaton. “A friend of mine runs it, her name is Dina. She’s a witch of a low grade, has some books that might be helpful for you. You should go see her.”

Stiles just gapes. “A _witch_?” and Deaton _rolls his fucking eyes_ like she couldn’t _kill_ him with _magic_ if he pisses her off which has a high likelihood of happening because he’s _Stiles_ -

“She’s not going to turn you into a pig or something,” Deaton says, and Stiles raises his eyebrows because do they _know_ that? For _certain_? “Now go.”

Stiles goes.

**  
**

When Stiles pulls up in front of the shop - a rinky dink little store, but well lit inside and still open - it’s dark out. The sun sets at around 7 these days, and the October wind is chilly. Stiles pulls the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands to keep them warm, and he’s pulling his backpack out of the Jeep when something moves behind him.

Stiles stills, but doesn’t turn around.

Slowly, slowly, he slings his bag over his shoulder. He’s tense, shoulders tight, concentrating so hard on what’s behind him as he comes around the Jeep that he runs right into the woman standing in between his headlights. She catches him around his shoulders and holds him there, and her grin makes him wish he could take a step back. “Hello, Stiles,” she says, voice raspy, and her eyes flash red. _Shit_. She’s smiling at him, a little thing, but it’s all teeth.

He watches her and says nothing (thinking, _how does she know my name, what does she want with me, am I going to die tonight -_ ).

“Walk with me,” she says, and steers him away from the shop with an arm around his shoulders. When they’ve crossed the street two others flank her, herding him into the alley. He swallows, looking at her. She doesn’t look - she doesn’t look like a wolf. She just looks like a woman, tall with an elegantly arched neck and her brown hair curled down her back and her eyes a startling and clear shade of blue when they’re not murder-red.

He’s expecting it, has been since the moment she showed up, but somehow when the shadows of the alley cover them and he gets slammed against the bricks so hard his head spins he’s still surprised. He blinks and blinks and waits for his head to clear, watching dimly as the woman ambles over to him. She grabs his chin in her hand, skin on skin for the first time, and he blinks again. “You’re not a wolf,” he says, voice thin but steady. She smirks and squeezes tighter, says, “Neither are you.” Her fingernails break the skin of his jaw, and then she steps away. The two others move in, hoisting him up the wall with clawed hands, banging his head again for good measure.

The woman sits on an upturned crate and watches as a third wolf comes out of the alley - another woman, this one darker and more menacing, eyes red, toes clawed and clicking against the concrete. She doesn’t hesitate, comes right up to him and wraps a hand around his throat, her claws pin-pricks of warning on the back of his neck. “It’s unusual,” the first woman says, watching with that same small smile as Stiles struggles to draw breath, “for a human to be the Second-in-Command of a wolf pack.”

The wolf’s grip on his neck loosens at a nod from the woman, and Stiles gasps and pulls air in, wishing he could rub his throat, wishing his feet were touching the ground. “I’m not the second, I’m not even in the pack,” Stiles says, as calmly as he can, and the she-wolf snarls and snaps her teeth at him, her spit landing on his face near his lip. “I’m not lying. You can - you can feel the connection, can’t you? And it’s -”

“Curious,” the woman interrupts, standing again. “You aren’t lying. For whatever reason, you aren’t an official member of the Hale pack.” The she-wolf’s grip tightens again, and Stiles makes a cut-off noise, tries not to feel the blood running down his wrists from the alphas at his sides. “Still, there are some connections you can’t explain away.” She nods to the she-wolf, and she squeezes once, tighter (tight enough that the edges of his vision are black, oh god), before she releases his throat, grabs his hair and slams his head back against the wall and then moves away, growling low the whole time.

Once Stiles can breathe again, he wheezes, “What do you want with me?” and the woman smirks again.

“Oh, come now, Stiles, don’t be _boring_ ,” she drawls, stalking over to him, close enough that the threat is clear but far enough that she can’t touch him. “We’ve been watching you long enough to know you can do better than this. Ask me something else.” She sounds _eager_ , goddamn it, but casual. Conversation over dinner voice. God.

Stiles works his jaw, tightens his hands into fists. “Fine,” he spits, because he knows he’s playing into her hands but he’s curious, damn it, and he’s probably going to die soon anyway. “How does a non-wolf become an alpha? And then lead an entire pack of them?”

She giggles, clapping her hands, and the sound grates against his ears. He twitches in their hold. “Oh, you _are_ a smart one! Isn’t he, Kali?” She turns to the she-wolf, who nods like it hurts to agree. When she faces him again, there’s something ugly in her face, though her delighted grin doesn’t change. Stiles swallows. “See, I was an emissary, once. My pack was quite large, all the way up in the woods in Canada. But they took me for granted, abused me, and I got sick of it. So I killed them, starting with the woman who convinced me to be the emissary. I could have been a mage, you know, not just a witch. A mage,” she says, suddenly in his face again, and his eyes are wide because _holy shit_ it’s not everyone who is powerful or disciplined enough to be a mage, and she nods, satisfied by his reaction. “Once I’d killed the alpha, I didn’t think anything would change. But - I got this _rush_ , and suddenly my eyes were red and I was doing spells only a high mage could do.”

Shit fucking christ, Stiles is definitely going to die. Shit.

“It really is a power trip, I have to tell you,” she continues, pacing past him. “You’d probably enjoy it, a little spark like you with so much power. Alas, I don’t think any power in the world could motivate you to betray your precious Derek. I mean,” and there is something - oh, shit, fingers, claws, _hooks_ in his head. His vision has gone fuzzy at the edges, but he can see them smirking. Lights flicker on the street, and her eyes are so bright  (red red red) that he has to shut his eyes against it. “No you don’t,” she says, and the hooks _yank_. His eyes fly open at the sensation - difficult to describe, but he imagines this is what Lily and Sophia and Teddy and Lincoln felt when their throats were ripped out, only in his mind - and a memory is there, vivid behind his eyes and filtered in her ugly red. He understands what is happening now, as he remembers a night - not so significant in the scheme of things, but it shows a lot that he doesn’t need this woman to understand - spent comforting Derek through the smell of ash in his lungs and the taste of them in his mouth.

She keeps digging, cackling now, and his head is so fuzzy now that it hardly matters that his eyes are open, because he can’t see much anyway. Everything except what she’s showing him is unclear, except this agony, too much in his head, foreign and dark and god he wish she’d just kill him already and -

Wait.

Wait, _wait_. What is she - where is she - she’s edging, but he can’t quite - what’s she going towards? What’s -

(no no no no no no, she can’t, she _can’t_ -)

He doesn’t know - she’s looking at Deaton and Stiles, and right now it’s just spell books and frustration and the Kanima, but it’s coming to something and - and what? Why can’t he just -

( _No_ , nonononononononoNO)

He still doesn’t - but he can’t ignore the panic, swelling so tight in his chest even if he doesn’t know what it is. As she pulls forward the memory of the first body they found - and god, they’re hooks for a reason, claws in his head shredding everything she pulls through, _christ why isn’t this over_ \- Stiles musters what he can and _pushes_.

He wasn’t expecting it to work, if he’s honest. But he hears her gasp and then there’s a tearing, awful agony in his head, everything white-hot and terrible, and then he comes to collapsed and gasping on the street, grit on his face and the worst headache of his life making the alley appear fuzzing. The hooks are gone but the scratches are there, and god is he not ready for when she leans down next to him on the street, sweat on her brow and her breath too hot on his face. “That’s where your real power is, boy,” she says. “It’s not your spark, like that idiot in your head says. It’s your strength of will.” She laughs, and Stiles flinches away from her, scrabbling in the street and backing into the clawed feet of the she-wolf, who snarls at him and gives a rough kick to his ribs.

“The deal here is this,” she continues, as Stiles struggles to breathe on the ground, “I want this territory. There’s something about it that I haven’t figured out yet - and you think you’re so clever, hiding it from me, but I know it’s _something_ \- but I’m going to get it. And I’m going to make it big, too, so everyone hears about the last of the Hales finally dying out. If that means we kill your precious alpha and force the rest of them like slaves, then so be it. If it means we kill his pack until he’s weak enough to just give it to us - well, wouldn’t that be something. And if it means I get inside his head and twist it around - you’ve given me some nice ideas for that, so thank you - until he’s killing his pack and joining us, even better. The point is, you won’t win. Pass that on to Hale for me, okay? Tell him hi from Jennifer Blake.”

**  
**

“Stiles.” Allison’s voice, and Stiles forces his eyes open. He’s in Allison’s car, and it’s stopped moving. It takes him longer than it should to remember how he got there, his head muddy and spinning as it is, and when he looks at her, she’s concerned. “We’re here,” she says, softly, and Stiles nods through the pounding of his head. He can’t remember how to move for a moment, and when he finally gets the door open he pitches forward. Allison is there, helping him up - grunting a little under his weight and murmuring something about “you eat too little and _yet_ ” that makes Stiles laugh harder than the joke warrants - and they make it up the stairs of her apartment and to her room with little incident. “Stiles,” she says, hovering over him as he blinks on the bed, “I think you have a concussion and you’re bleeding from somewhere and I don’t know what to do.”

Stiles blinks, and rolls his head to look at her. “Your dad?” he murmurs, and she shakes her head.

“He’s out of town, I’m sorry.” He shakes his head (minutely, because _god_ is it pounding and he can’t tell if it’s the concussion or fucking Jennifer and her hooks) and reaches into his pocket for his phone, pressing it into her hand. “Who do you want me to call?”

“Derek,” Stiles says immediately, catching on _who do you want_ (thinking _and Scott, and my father_ ). When she blinks and nods and moves to make the call he catches her wrist. “Wait. No. I’m sorry - you said who do I want and I didn’t think. Don’t call Derek.” He’ll have to talk to Derek eventually, he knows, but not first. He isn’t - he can’t yet. He swallows. “Call Deaton.”

 

After she calls Deaton, Allison slips out of the room, leaving Stiles to lie on her bed and work on his breathing. She doesn’t know what to do: she knows Stiles is having a tough time, but she’s never seen him so rattled. She knows he said not to call, but - she doesn’t know what else to do.

“Scott,” she says when he picks up, before he can say anything else. “I know it’s late and you and Stiles aren’t talking but something’s happened and I think he needs you.”

There’s rustling in the background, and then Scott says, sounding bleary but aware, “What happened?”

“He was attacked, I don’t really know yet, but he’s hurt and I think you should get over here.”

There’s a pause. “Allison, I don’t have a car.”

“Then call Derek.” She’s impatient; she can hear Stiles struggling to breathe through the open door. “Stiles probably needs to see him too anyway.”

“Are - are you sure that’s a good idea? Are you going to be able to handle it?”

“Don’t worry about me. Just - get over here. He’s at my apartment.” And she hangs up.

**  
**

Allison comes back into the room a few minutes later with a glass of water and a Pixi Stix. “You need the energy,” she explains, and Stiles nods tiredly and takes them from her. He watches her through half-lidded eyes as she pulls a chair next to the bedside and slumps into it, setting her phone on the table next to the water, but not before checking it once, and then again. Conversationally, he says, “So, who else did she call?” she freezes, blinking at him, and he’s too tired for this. He rubs a hand over his face, then winces, forgetting the cuts he got from rolling in the street.

She swallows, meets his eyes. “Scott,” she whispers. Stiles releases a long breath.

“Which means Derek too, since he can’t drive. Bet you were planning that.” Allison flushes guiltily, and he sighs again. “Are you going to be okay with that? With Derek?”

“ _Why_ do people keep asking me that?” Allison asks furiously, too defensive, and something inside him narrows, intuitive. “I’ll be fine.” Her voice and face turn bitter, too quickly between one blink and the next for him to track the change. “Besides, it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve come face to face with my mom’s murderer.”

Stiles catches her wrist, his eyes narrow. “They didn’t tell you?” She looks at him in confusion, and his grip on her wrists tightens for a moment, his eyes flashing before he lets go. “Jesus _chirst_. I thought - I knew Scott - but I thought. Jesus.”

“Stiles, what are you _talking_ about?”

Stiles sighs again, feeling pissed off and too tired and hurting for any of this. His ribs ache when he breathes and his head is pounding and largely unclear, and he’s getting blood on her sheets. He wishes Scott was less stupid about her, not for the first time. “All right. Scott didn’t want anyone to tell you, but the night your mom got bitten…”

**  
**

When Derek follows Scott into Allison’s apartment, he can still feel the panic tight in his throat. Deaton is talking to Allison in low tones in front of a closed door, behind which he can hear Stiles’ heartbeat. Allison nods, and then Deaton is thanking her and walking out, nodding to Derek as he passes. Scott immediately rushes forward, Allison stepping aside to let him in the room without a word. There is a stony angriness in her, but to Derek’s surprise it abates when Scott disappears inside her room instead of intensifying.

He ignores it for now; their relationship issues are not his problem. “Is Stiles okay?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” Allison says, looking at the floor and her voice not as present as he expected. “He um, he has a concussion and some cuts, and he seems pretty rattled, but he’s not too badly hurt.”

Quietly, Derek says, “It was the alphas, I’m assuming?”

She looks up at him, meets his eyes for the first time maybe ever. There is something different when she looks at him now; he can’t identify it, doesn’t know her well enough to know how to read her. “Yeah. I didn’t tell Scott on the phone, sorry.”

Derek shrugs, feeling tense. It smells like Argent here. It’s not necessarily a bad smell, and he even likes Allison, though he’s sure she hates him. It’s just that it’s like Kate, too, and Chris who he doesn’t trust worth anything. “You can sit,” Allison offers unexpectedly, gesturing awkwardly at the couch. Derek complies on autopilot, and a moment later she sits too, in the love seat across from him.

It’s silent. Awkward. Despite Allison’s reassurance that Stiles will be fine (which he believes, because she’s always looked out for him in the past), Derek worries. He wants to see Stiles with his own eyes, wants to hear his voice.

Just as he thinks this, the low murmur of voices from the other room becomes a roar, and then Scott is shouting. Derek winces and tries to tune out his words out of courtesy, looking at Allison as he asks, “Do you know why they’re arguing?”

To Derek’s utter surprise, a guilty look crosses her face, settling into the lines of her frown. She clears her throat, looking away from him. “Yeah, that’d probably be me.” Allison fidgets, rubs her hands together, looks at them as she says, “Stiles told me. You know, about what happened with my mom. The real story.”

“Oh,” Derek says faintly, and when she looks up at him he finds himself unable to meet her eyes.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” There’s accusation in her voice, but he knows he deserves at least that.

“Scott asked me not to.” When he looks up and sees her glare, he swallows and continues, “And I didn’t want to do that to you. It’s - hard. To find out the truth of people. She had - died. I didn’t think - I didn’t want to change how you thought of her.”

She laughs, and it’s enough of a surprise that Derek looks up. “Stiles is right, you are terrible at words.” He flushes, watches her expression harden. “Still. You should have told me. It might have made things different with Gerard.”

He forces his voice to be gentle. “Might. Or it might have made things worse.” He looks away. “I know what you think of me, and what I am. But you didn’t deserve to have your mother taken away from you, and you didn’t deserve to confront the hard truth about her, not so soon.”

“You don’t know anything about what I think of you,” Allison says, harsher than anything she’s said yet, and he looks at her in sharp surprise. Before she can explain or he can ask, the door opens and Scott comes out, looking slightly chastised but definitely less tense than he has in recent days. Derek watches Allison’s face harden and ducks out of the room as quickly as he can, nodding at her as he goes and placing a hand on Scott’s shoulder in a silent _good luck_ gesture.

He closes the door to Allison’s room quietly behind him, standing in front of it for a moment to just look. The room itself is kind of blandly decorated and looks largely uninhabited, but Derek’s focus is more on Stiles, lying on his back on the bed with his eyes closed. “Are you supposed to be sleeping with a concussion?” he asks, feeling the need to whisper.

Stiles snorts. “Only a few hours at a time.”

“Oh.”

Even in the dimness he can see Stiles rolling his eyes. “I don’t _care_ , Derek. I wasn’t asleep anyway. Now come here.” Derek does, hesitantly sitting in the chair at the bedside. Stiles blinks open his eyes to watch as he does, and he looks terrible, shadows like bruises under his eyes and small cuts on his face and _actual_ bruises forming in the shape of fingers around his throat. He looks exhausted and too thin, his shirt off but the blankets tugged up high enough that just the jut of his collar bone is visible.

Derek doesn’t want to be caught staring, so he forces his eyes away, to his hands dangling between his knees. “Scott looked good. Better. When he walked out.”

“We made up,” Stiles says, false cheer in his voice. “We’re bros again.”

Derek nods. “He missed you.”

“Of course he did,” Stiles scoffs, and the fakeness of it all grates against his ears. “I’m awesome.”

“Stiles,” Derek says, quietly, and he can see the breath coming out of Stiles all at once. “You don’t have to do that for me.” Stiles nods tiredly, and Derek goes back to looking at his hands, soaking in Stiles’ scent and his breathing and his heartbeat while he has the chance. “Are you okay?”

Stiles releases a long breath, like it costs him to do it. “The woman, the leader of the alphas - her name was Jennifer Blake, and she says hi by the way - she was a witch.” Derek stiffens, and Stiles nods again, a small movement. “She’s very powerful. She has this - _thing_ that she does. With her magic. She just - gets inside your head and digs around for a little while, until she finds what she wants. Deaton will fill you in on the whole deal tomorrow, but - it was unpleasant.”

 _Unpleasant_ sounds like an understatement. He looks up, watching Stiles steadily. “And did she find it? What she wanted?”

“No,” and his voice is small, lacking the conviction Derek is expecting from him. He remembers what Allison said, _he seems pretty rattled_ , and Derek has to agree. “But almost.”

Derek sits, looking at Stiles face and how he is avoiding his eyes. He weighs his options. Eventually, Derek says, “I figured it out, you know. What you’re hiding.”

“Oh yeah?” Stiles challenges, but it’s fake, too much bravado.

“It’s okay,” Derek says, because he can hear the subtle spike in Stiles’ heartbeat. “I’m not upset about it. I think it’s admirable, what you’re doing - what you’re preparing to do.”

“Admirable,” Stiles breathes, like it’s a foreign word.

“Yes, admirable. I mean, I don’t know most of the details. Just what’s in the bestiary, which isn’t much.” Stiles smiles faintly, like _I know, tell me about it_. “I just - I wish you would have told me. I would have understood.”

“Would you now.” It’s said flatly enough that it stings, and Derek knows that it was meant to. He flinches.

“I don’t have to stay,” Derek says softly. “Don’t feel obligated.”

“Derek, no. I’m - I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” He sounds exhausted and kind of tearful, and that more than anything is what keeps Derek from rising from the chair. “Would you - I mean.” There’s something terribly hesitant in his tone, and Derek looks up, watches his face as he struggles with his words. “Would you mind staying here tonight? You don’t have to do it like we always did, at my house. I just.”

“Of course,” Derek saying, feeling something fuzzy and sad in his chest that has him blinking and looking at his hands for a moment.

“You’ll have to wake me up every few hours, because of the concussion,” Stiles says, though it sounds kind of like a warning.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Derek promises, and he means it.

**  
**

Things get better after that. Not - completely, of course. He still has to hide from his dad until the bruises are less monstrous and then come up with some bullshit excuse for why they’re there at all (and he knows his dad knows he’s lying, which is _shit_ because he thought they were finally getting somewhere). In addition to all of that, now that the alphas are out there, they’re _out there_ , attacking Derek’s pack whenever they can. The murders decrease in frequency, which at least is better, but no one really has a plan of attack or even a next step so it’s all pretty much shit. Still, between members of Derek’s pack showing up after a beat down expecting him to patch them up and call Derek (he always does) and fruitless planning sessions with Deaton, he somehow finds Scott back in his life. They’re not living in each other’s pockets like they used to, and Scott still sits with the pack at lunch, but it’s better than it was, and even though Stiles still isn’t really sleeping he feels a little - _less_ of what he was before. It’s improvement.

Even with all this in mind, he’s still surprised when Scott calls him on a Friday night.

“Are you at home?” Scott opens with, sounding unsure, and Stiles pauses on his way down the stairs.

“Yes,” Stiles answers, cautious. It’s loud in the background (he can hear pretty distinctly Isaac’s indignant shouting and Erica cackling), but - tight. Like they’re in a small space. “Why?”

“Derek kicked us out,” Scott says, and Stiles’ silence must be pretty telling because he quickly follows it up with, “not, like, _permanently_. Just for the night. He seemed kind of down.”

“And you _listened_ to him?”

Scott clears his throat uncomfortably. “He didn’t really ask.”

It takes Stiles a moment to understand. “He _alpha voiced_ you away from him?”

He can practically hear Scott wincing. “Look, we’re already outside. Can we come in?”

“Of course,” Stiles says, kind of without thinking because he’s in his kitchen now and the calendar on the refrigerator is right there. _Shit_.

Scott hangs up with barely an, “awesome, thanks!” and then his front door is bursting open, five teenaged werewolves and Lydia stumbling in. Isaac tackles Erica pretty much instantly to his couch, Jackson following and laughing - _laughing._ Boyd comes in last, Scott coming back to help him carry the shitload of snacks he’s carrying.

Lydia delicately steps over the Isaac-Erica pile - which has rolled to the floor, knocking his coffee table out of their way - and into the kitchen where Stiles is watching with growing dismay. “What did I invite into my home.”

Lydia shrugs. “Disaster.” When he keeps looking at her, she rolls her eyes and huffs. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. The last time I had the pack over to my house, they broke three lamps and ate all of my mom’s imported Italian gelato.”

“That’s supposed to _reassure_ me?” Stiles squeaks.

“No. But it’s too late to turn them away now,” she says brightly, and breezes into the other room, climbing immediately into Jackson’s lap in his father’s armchair. _God._

“Scott!” Stiles calls, and beckons him into the kitchen with his hand.

“Sorry about all that,” Scott apologizes immediately. “It’s just - well, I was going to say we’re not normally like this but we kind of _are._ I should have warned you though, I wasn’t -”

Stiles holds a hand up to stop him. “It’s fine. I mean, I’d prefer that nothing got broken and you only eat the food you brought, but _this_ is fine. I just. I need you to do me a favor.”

“Sure, what’s up?” Scott asks immediately, and Stiles takes a moment to silently thank whatever god is up there that they’re past their rough patch.

“I need to go see Derek,” Stiles says, and Scott just blinks at him, wide-eyed. “I know. It’s just,” he lowers his voice, “it’s the anniversary today. He shouldn’t be alone, and he can’t alpha voice me away.” Scott’s eyes are, impossibly, wider. “Look. Just. Tell my dad it’s cool when he gets home, and keep them from breaking things, and don’t say anything to them about it, okay? I’m sure he doesn’t want them to know.”

Scott blinks. “Of course, man. Do what you gotta do.”

“Thanks, Scotty. I’ll be back as quick as I can, but if you need to you can set up camp here for the night.”

Without waiting for a reply, Stiles grabs his hoodie (the red one, the one Derek got him), his keys, and his phone, and ducks out the door.

**  
**

Stiles shows up at Derek’s loft fully intending to storm in and lecture Derek about not pushing people away - he’s aware that it’s hypocritical, but it’s different with pack - and then demand forcefully that Derek call them back.

When he gets there though, no one answers his knock. He waits and then calls out, “Derek?” No response. “Look, I’m coming in now. Don’t kill me.” The door is unlocked and slides open easily, and when he steps inside, it’s dark. The only light comes streaming in from the back wall of windows, orange and dimming. Silhouetted in the soft light is Derek, sitting hunched on his bed with his head in his hands. Stiles pauses in his doorway. Any desire to yell has disappeared entirely at the sight of him like this, but he doesn’t know what to do now. He knows what he wants to do, but he’s not sure he’s allowed or if Derek even wants him to.

He keeps his voice low when he speaks. “Derek. I know what today is.” November 17. Seven years ago today, the Hale house burned down, along with most of it’s inhabitants. “You shouldn’t have sent the pack away. They’re wreaking havoc at my house, and they’re anxious because you’re upset. You should be with them.” He sighs, taking a step closer to where Derek stays, unmoving. When there’s no protest, he moves closer, until he’s only a few steps from the bed. He can see, now, that Derek hasn’t been crying, but he can also see the trembling in his shoulders and the blood on the tips of his fingers. He swallows, making his voice even softer. “But I get why you did it, too.”

He sits down slowly on the bed next to Derek. Everything he does feels too loud and too much in the softness of the moment, like a bullet through a still frame. Carefully, he places a hand on Derek’s knee, who releases a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry,” Stiles whispers.

Derek lifts his head up from his hands. His eyes are alpha red, but Stiles doesn’t believe in it. He scoots forward, making sure to keep his eyes locked with Derek, and moves his hand from his knee to his shoulder. After a moment, the red bleeds away, and Derek’s fist clench in lap. Stiles moves his other hand and peels the fists apart, wiping the blood from the healing palms of his hands and just - holding them, until the claws retract.

Everything is very quiet.

Then, all at once, Derek just shudders apart. He’s clutching Stiles’ hand like a lifeline, shaking and releasing these horrible dry sobs, his entire body trembling with the force of it. Stiles reacts without thinking, kind of wrapping himself entirely around Derek, making soothing sounds as he presses his face to his chest. He maneuvers them until they’re lying on the bed on their sides, Stiles throwing a leg over Derek’s hip and wrapping his arms as far around as he can get them. He lets Derek wet his chest, hooking his chin over the top of Derek’s head and noting with dull surprise that he’s taller now.

It grows dark around them. The tears have stopped, sobs occasionally shaking Derek’s body, but Stiles makes no move to leave. His phone buzzes in his pocket, but he ignores it. He rubs between Derek’s shoulders, runs his fingers through his hair. When his arm starts to go numb, he shifts them so he’s lying on his back with Derek resting on top of him, curled up against him with his head on his chest. Derek is heavy, kind of smothering him a little, but he doesn’t say anything.

It must be hours before Derek’s breathing evens out, settling into the rhythm of sleep. Just before he drifts, he murmurs into Stiles’ chest, “Thank you,” and Stiles just shushes him and presses a kiss to the top of his head.

**  
**

When Derek wakes up the next morning, the sheets are still warm but the loft is empty. He sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, rubbing his hands tiredly over his face. He stands, his legs kind of shaky, and wanders over to his table. There’s a steaming cup of coffee and a plate of warm scrambled eggs. Underneath the coffee (made just how he likes it he notes, his chest feeling warm), there’s a note, written in Stiles terrible handwriting.

 _I had to get back to my dad, I’m so sorry. I hope this makes up for it, at least a little._

Derek smiles, taking a bite of the eggs. Needs a little salt, too much pepper, and they’re kind of overcooked,  but it’s the thought that counts. He turns the note over to set it down, but there’s more on the back.

_And Derek? I’m sorry. You deserve better. Than all of this._

_Now call your damn betas or I will do it for you._

Derek laughs out loud, wiping his wet eyes. He goes back over by his bed to grab his phone before he sits down with his terrible eggs and just right coffee.

**  
**

Eight days have passed since the anniversary of the fire, and Stiles has felt off balance ever since. He keeps on looking for Derek in his room or reaching to text him, which he hasn’t done since summer. He feels even worse since the alphas haven’t made any new moves in ten days, and now he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It’s the Saturday before Thanksgiving though, and Stiles is trying to not act as strange as he feels. After he invited a bunch of strange people into his home and then disappeared for a night, his dad placed him under house arrest and hasn’t let up yet, but he’s working now and Stiles invited Scott over for some video gaming to relieve his nerves.

It isn’t really working. They’re playing Halo 4 and Stiles has beaten the game a few times before, but he keeps on getting distracted by nothing and dying violent deaths. Scott keeps on giving him weird looks until eventually he suggests that they stop with the games and watch a movie. Stiles accepts, feeling grateful, and lets Scott grab snacks from the kitchen and get the movie set up. It’s the same one Stiles watched with Allison forever ago, Scott’s favorite, and he lets the familiar sounds wash over him to cover his growing unease. Something feels wrong.

Almost as soon as he thinks this, Scott shoots up and releases a low whine. Immediately, Stiles reaches forward and pauses the movie. “What is it?”

Scott covers his ears with hands, shaking his head and whining. He lets out something akin to a yip, or maybe a bark, and then his eyes fly open, glowing gold. He growls, but it tapers off to a whimper of something like pain. Stiles is panicking now. “Scott, what is it?”

Abruptly, Scott stops, collapsing back onto the couch. He sits for barely a moment, panting and trying to catch his breath, when his phone rings on the coffee table. Stiles reads isaac across the screen before Scott picks it up. “You felt it too?” he asks. Stiles wishes, now more than ever, that he was werewolf, if only for the super hearing. “Everyone?...Where?...His loft?” Scott snarls low, a threat. Stiles’ fingers are gripping the remote so tight he can hear the plastic creaking. “I’m on my way,” Scott says, and hangs up so harshly his phone makes a cracking sound. He stands.

Stiles stands too. “What’s going on?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Scott says, gathering his things and not looking at him, and fury flares low in Stiles’ stomach. He reaches out and grabs Scott’s wrist, yanking him backwards and not letting go even when Scott bares his teeth and snarls.

“It does matter,” Stiles snarls back. “Now tell me what the hell is going on or so help me god I will mountain ash you to this place until you do.”

Scott snarls again, but he must be able to tell that there was no lie in his heartbeat because he pulls back, taking his arm from his grasp. “It’s Derek,” he says, and Stiles’ stomach drops. “We all felt it, over the bond. He’s not at the loft and Isaac can’t smell anything.”

He feels nothing but cold fury running through his veins. “It’s the alphas,” he spits, because they’ve used the scent trick before. “They’ve got Derek.”

Scott nods and turns to go. “Wait! I’m going with you. Let me drive,” Stiles says, going for his keys.

Scott shakes his head vehemently. “No.” When Stiles just glares, he flashes his eyes, like that’s ever worked. “I mean it. Stay out this, Stiles. We’re gonna take care of this. Besides, it’s faster if I run anyway.”

“Hey, don’t you dare - _hey_!” But Scott is gone, run out the door with his shoes still waiting on the matt.

“Goddammit!” Stiles shouts, though no one is there to hear him. Growling low under his breath, he grabs what he needs from his room and then ducks into his kitchen, scrawling a note out to his dad. He is going to get his ass _whipped_ for this, but fuck what they said - they’re going to need him. Derek needs him. “Fucking werewolves,” he mutters, and runs out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CLIFFHANGERS ARE THE WORST AND I'M SORRY BUT THERE'S JUST A LOT I HAD TO STOP SOMEWHERE 
> 
> Sorry that all of the "reveals" were kind of super cheesy? I didn't really want to info-dump and this seemed like the next best thing.
> 
> The next chapter should be up sooner than the last one. It's summer now and it's more action-y which goes quicker.
> 
> Anyway, sound off in the comments and let me know what you think!
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](http://allyaisbae.tumblr.com) if you'd rather yell at me there.


	3. and i'll never go home again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the jeep, he calls Lydia first. “What’s going on?” she asks, not bothering with hello. “Jackson freaked the fuck out and vanished, and I’m heading over to Derek’s right now but I figured if you’re calling me you must know something .”
> 
> “It’s the alphas, they have Derek,” Stiles says, pulling out of his driveway with a screech. His skin is buzzing buzzing buzzing, his mind racing. He needs a plan and he thinks he has one but he needs a plan and so he called Lydia but what now what now what now -
> 
> He reminds himself to breathe as Lydia releases a long string of curses on the other end. “Okay,” she says at the end of it. “What do you need me to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this is that scene in Captain America 2 where Steve visits Peggy and she's like "it's been so long. You're alive!" And Steve is like "I couldn't leave my best girl" and everyone cried, only I'm Steve and you guys are Peggy and this fic is somehow the best girl.
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> Other warnings (contains mild spoilers): Some self harm, in the form of Stiles purposefully pressing on a mild cut to keep him focused (the cut is also self-inflicted, for magic reasons); graphic(?) descriptions of blood and injury, also torture from an outside POV.
> 
> The nemeton happens! Action! Adventure! Pacing issues! SO MANY BAMFS HONESTLY! Shit happens!! enjoy!

In the jeep, he calls Lydia first. “What’s going on?” she asks, not bothering with hello. “Jackson freaked the fuck out and vanished, and I’m heading over to Derek’s right now but I figured if you’re calling me you must know _something_.”

“It’s the alphas, they have Derek,” Stiles says, pulling out of his driveway with a screech. His skin is buzzing buzzing buzzing, his mind racing. He needs a plan and he thinks he has one but he needs a _plan_ and so he called Lydia but what now what now what _now_ -

He reminds himself to breathe as Lydia releases a long string of curses on the other end. “Okay,” she says at the end of it. “What do you need me to do?”

What does he need what does he need - a _plan_ he needs a plan and he thinks he has one but he needs a _plan -_

“ _Stiles_. What do you need?”

He realizes he’s been stopped at the same intersection long enough for the light to turn from green to red back to yellow again. What does he need.

He takes a deep breath.

“Right. Okay. What I need is for you to get in touch with the betas, see if any of them even have their goddamn phones on them, let me know what they’re doing. They don’t have good enough crisis sense to have a plan but I need to know what they find anyway.”

“Okay, what else?”

If Stiles turns left once this light finally turns green, it takes him to Deaton, who will surely know what to do, give him books he’s already read and a plan that will have minimal damage to the other side and get Derek back. “Oh, don’t go to Derek’s. I don’t  - that’s a dead end for now, until I know how to do this. Go to Allison’s instead - ask her about something called the nemeton, and druids.” If he turns right, he goes out towards the preserve, which is the Hale house and the nemeton and the woods.

“Okay. I can do that. Stiles, do you have a plan?”

Does he have a plan. He thinks he does. He thinks he does, and he thinks it’s - it’s reckless and dangerous but he doesn’t want fucking Deaton and diplomacy, he was done with that a long time ago. He wants to rip the alphas apart and make them wish they hadn’t come, hadn’t taken what was his, hadn’t proved that he was right and he did have to lose everything, had to fucking let everything go (let everyone go) and push it all away until it was him and the goddamn tree and this town which he loves so much that he has to protect from things like the alphas.

The light turns green.

His mind shutters, narrowing in focus. He has a plan.

Stiles jerks his car to the right.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Meet me at Allison’s in an hour.”

 

67 minutes later finds Stiles flinging himself bodily into the seat of his jeep, gasping and bleeding. His phone is ringing on the seat next to him but he ignores it, tearing a strip from the bottom of his tshirt and tying it around his left hand, hissing at the contact and tightening the knot with his teeth. His right hand is shaking when he reaches for his phone. His entire body is shaking (screaming _too full too full not mine not mine_ at the energy settling itself in Stiles’ ribcage). The phone stops ringing but he calls back, trying to breathe and trying not to think _I fucked up_ on repeat. When that doesn’t work, he tries to cover it with _this is the only way I have to save Derek_ and it all seems mostly futile until Allison says on the other line, “Stiles, where the fuck are you,” and then he laughs once a little hysterically.

Allison pauses. “Did you just laugh? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He makes the statement true by sitting up, reminding himself to take a deep breath, and wrangling the panic inside him until it’s low in the pit of his stomach, burning itself into something useful. He starts the car.

“Are you sure? Because you’re also nine minutes late and sound like you’re about to throw up.”

“I won’t throw up. Probably.” He hisses when he puts both of his hands on the steering wheel, his left a looser grip than his right. He pulls out from the side of the road, speeding tremendously and trying to think what the next step is. “Look, I’ll be at your place in like 15 minutes, tops. Be ready for me.”

“Stiles, what did you do?” Allison asks, suspicious, and another hysterical laugh bubbles up in him before he pushes it down.

“I’ll tell you when I get there. Just - be ready for me, okay? You’ve still got my books there, right?”

Allison takes a deep breath. “Yes, I do. Okay. We’ll be ready for you.”

“Good,” Stiles says, and hangs up.

 

Allison opens up the door for him as he’s raising his fist to knock. She takes a look at the bandage on his hand (left hand to knock right hand to clutch his clunky red toolbox full of everything he needs) and her eyes narrow. She tugs him bodily into the living room, where Lydia is paging through some of his books.

“Your dad?” Stiles asks as Allison leads him to sitting on the couch across from Lydia, unravelling his tshirt bandage and scowling down at his hand. He drops his toolbox on the ground at his feet.

“Not here,” Lydia answers without looking up. “Also, are you fucking with me right now, Stilinski? _Druids?”_

“I had to do something,” he defends, then swats at Allison’s fussing. “God Allison, I’m fine. I’m not going to bleed out, but I need both hands.”

“You’re not _fine_ ,” Allison hisses. “You’re going to let me bandage it properly while you explain shit to Lydia, and if you complain I’ll make you sit through stitches.”

Stiles swallows. Lydia is watching the two of them with her head tilted, gaze analytical. He takes a deep breath. “What do you want to know?”

Lydia arches a brow. She looks - cold. Angry, he realizes. Allison stands, grumbling about first aid as she leaves the room, and Lydia just maintains eye contact with him, the book on the table abandoned. “Okay,” she says finally, her eyes tight. “What’s your plan?”

“Not that one,” Stiles says immediately. “Next question.”

Lydia’s eyes get tighter. Coming back into the room, Allison says, “You can’t refuse to answer the first question! That’s against the rules!”

His ribs ache. Allison was right on the phone, he might throw up. He says, “I wasn’t aware we were playing a game,” while his right hand rubs at his sternum.

Lydia snorts. “Please. The alphas have been toying with us for weeks, of course we’re playing a game.”

Stiles wants to snap like _Derek’s life is not something I’m willing to gamble_ , but they all know that already. He says nothing, just winces as Allison tapes up his hand. Lydia is still watching and he wants to fidget but he’s gotten good at this, so he just looks right back, waiting for her to look away first or keep playing.

Allison glances between them as if just noticing the tension for the first time, wiping her hands on her pants. She opens her mouth to say something, but Lydia is faster. “Fine. If we’re avoiding what’s happening right now - which is so fucking stupid, Stilinski, I can’t begin to tell you - then explain something to me.”

Because he’s a little shit, Stiles makes a gesture like _go on_ while he leans back into the couch. Lydia smirks, which is when he knows she’s lined up for a killshot. She says, “What happened between you and Derek?”

Allison’s hand settles on his knee, squeezing tightly. She’s watching him, he can feel it, but he doesn’t look at her. On his lap, he tightens his hands into fists. The pain in the left one is good, forces him to keep breathing, keep looking at Lydia. “You’re going to have to be more specific,” he says steadily, and Lydia rolls her eyes at him.

“Oh, don’t be like that. We all know something happened before summer, and that whatever it was fucked the two of you up. And you wouldn’t willingly bleed for just anyone,” she tips her head towards his hand.

Stiles might be stupid sometimes, but he knows when he’s beaten. He takes a deep breath. Allison squeezes his knee again. He thinks it’s supposed to be comforting, but mostly he’s resisting the urge to bat her hand away. “He asked me to help him, back when - with the kanima. After that night at the pool, you remember.” Lydia nods. Stiles is - he remembers too. Derek had been an ass that night, even after _an abomination_ and two hours of Stiles keeping him alive, and because Stiles has no self preservation instinct, he’d yelled after him. Horrible things, like _you’re a shit alpha_ and _you’re going to get everyone killed_ and _you don’t even know how to act like a fucking human._ Scott had pulled Stiles away before things could get ugly, but he still said it.

“Anyway, we made a deal. I would help him with the kanima and his pack, and he’d make sure nothing killed me as well as answer all my questions.” After, Derek had crawled through Stiles window. It’d been shocking enough to stop Stiles’ panic attack in it’s tracks. He’d been - contrite that night, the best he knew how. Still an ass, but Stiles had seen the intent. Also, it hadn’t hurt that he’d uttered words like _please_ and _thank you for not letting me drown_ even though he’d looked like it was killing him to do it. Teeth gritted the whole time, god. “So I - did. We did that. But it became - more.”

 _More_ , so much more. It happened slowly, so slowly he almost didn’t notice it had happened at all. It started out with Derek, bursting into his room like _did you find anything?_ and Stiles snarking back from his chair like _well it’s not like you’ve given me much to work with. Research takes time, not that you would know_. He didn’t really notice when Derek stopped leaving in a huff and started sitting on his bed instead, or when the anger and snapping turned into something more playful. He didn’t really notice the first time Derek fell asleep in his bed, or the first time they fell asleep in it together. Didn’t really realize how much things had changed at all, until Derek was sitting bleeding on the lip of his bathtub and Stiles was standing in the V of his legs with a red-stained washcloth, his chest catching on how defeated Derek looked sitting there, his eyes burning with the knowledge that he wanted always to be there to draw him back.

“More?” Lydia asks, jolting him back to the present. “What do you mean, _more_?”

Stiles swallows. “Friends.” And trust, more importantly.  

“Friends?” Lydia repeats, incredulous. Stiles stares at his hands.

“Yeah.”

Silence for a moment. Then -

“Are you _shitting_ me?” Lydia shouts, and Stiles looks up, startled.

“Lydia,” Allison says, reproachful. Lydia levels a finger at her, sitting next to Stiles on the couch.

“No.” She points the finger at Stiles next, who tries not to flinch. “You’re telling me you two have been angsty little shits, pining over each other since like _May_ and you didn’t even fucking have _sex?_ ”

A slightly hysterical laugh bubbles it way up his throat. “ _Lydia,”_ Allison hisses, scandalized. Stiles’ lips twitch, and Lydia points her finger again, accusatory. He holds his hands up in surrender and Lydia’s phone buzzes on the table. Grumbling under her breath (Stiles hears _fucking idiots_ and stops listening), Lydia stands and reaches for the phone, turning away from them to read the text.

Stiles leans forward and shuffles through the books on the table, trying to find the one he wants. The spell book Deaton gave him is in his toolbox, but he knows that the spell he needs isn’t in there.

Lydia says, “That was Jackson. The alphas’ scents were covered somehow at the loft, so there’s no trail at all, no clues. They’re searching out around town now.”

Stiles pulls a book from the pile. “Are any of the betas still at the loft?” Lydia turns away again to text.

As Stiles leafs through the book he pulled, he can feel Allison’s eyes on him. She’s no longer touching him, thank god. She leans in closer, her breath warm near his collar, and asks, voice low, “Are you okay?”

Stiles closes his eyes. He feels like he’s going to fly apart but he’s not going to, because he can’t afford to. Derek is missing and the betas are panicking, so he can’t afford to.

The magic curling in his ribs _aches_ inside him.

Lydia paces back towards them. “The only person at the loft right now is Boyd.”

“Boyd won’t be a problem,” Stiles says, not looking up from the book he’s on. He’s only halfway through the spell on the page but it seems like it will work and it’s already been nearly two hours so he shuts the book and shoves it and the other into his toolbox. “Let’s go.”

Lydia raises a brow at him but gathers her her purse and her coat. Allison is still looking at him as she takes her bow and some knives in their cases from where she put them against the wall. Stiles hoists up his toolbox and his phone and leads Lydia out the door in front of him.

Before he can leave, Allison catches the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Lydia is ahead of them, paging the elevator. “Stiles,” Allison says, and he keeps his eyes focused down the hall. “Are you okay?”

He checks the time on his watch. It’s been 102 minutes since he found out Derek was taken. He doesn’t know what the alphas are doing to Derek, but two hours is a long time when you’ve been kidnapped and tortured. Stiles would know.

He meets her eyes. “I will be,” he says. Makes his voice hard, his eyes flinty. “Once we get Derek back.”

 

“No.”

“What do you mean, _no?”_

Boyd leans away from the force of Lydia’s fury, pulling the door closer to his body to keep them out. Behind him, Allison sighs. Stiles tightens his grip on his toolbox. Boyd says, “The other betas don’t really want...anyone else here.” His eyes flick to Stiles’ face. He clears his throat. “In fact, Jackson said not him specifically.”

Lydia growls, subvocal. Boyd doesn’t flinch, which Stiles thinks is pretty admirable. The foreign magic in him is swelling in the presence of the pack’s den, making his ribs groan. He rubs at his sternum, frowning, and says kind of without thinking, “Who cares what the other betas want? They’re not here, and you outrank them anyway.”

Lydia whips around to stare at him. Boyd’s eyes have gotten marginally larger. “What?” Lydia asks.

Stiles blinks. “What do you mean, what? Boyd is Derek’s second, isn’t he?” The magic thrums in rightness at his statement, which is - weird. Lydia is gaping at him. “Oh shit, did you guys not know?” Looking vaguely startled (hard to tell, with Boyd), Boyd shakes his head.

The magic gives a distinct spike, radiating pain in his stomach just from its strangeness. Stiles’s hand drops lower, making a face. He shakes his head to clear it; Derek needs him. “Look, it doesn’t really matter. I think I know how to find Derek, and even if it doesn’t work, it can’t be worse than whatever panicked sniffing the rest of the pack is doing.”

Boyd’s lips twitch. He slides the door open and steps aside to let them in. Lydia sniffs haughtily as she passes, and Stiles nods to him, stepping past. The magic in him stretches as he crosses through the doorway, and he catches his breath. It’s old magic, the magic of homes and the power that comes from them (Stiles learned about it when he was researching vampires). He could have pushed his way past Boyd, but he didn’t, and now he’s thrumming with the pack’s energy because of it.

Allison lays a hand on his arm as she passes by, snapping him out of his thoughts as she drops her gear by the door. Lydia is wandering farther into the loft, surveying the damage, of which there is plenty. The sheets are ripped from the bed; claw marks mar the floor on a path from the bed to the door, scraping the back of the couch and the wood of the kitchen island as well; the couch cushions are upturned onto the floor; the coffee table is knocked over on it’s side. Stiles lets out a low whistle.

Behind him, Boyd says, “Just the bed stuff is from the alphas. The rest was…”

“They were trying to find a scent,” Lydia says, picks up an upturned lamp. “The betas.”

“Yeah? And how well did that go?” Allison snarks, running her fingers over the tears in the sheets. Boyd gives a low snarl at her, and she bares her teeth back. Lydia sighs, and Stiles steps very obviously between them, blocking their view of each other. He glares at Allison, and she goes back to examining the sheets, looking contrite.

There’s a tense silence for a few seconds before Lydia breaks it. She’s not looking at him, instead fighting to right the coffee table, but her question is directed at him anyway. “You said you could find Derek. How?”

Stiles doesn’t reply. He sets down his tool box where he is standing and then wanders away, crouching down next to the kitchen island. He traces his fingers over the scratches there. He wishes he could tell who left them, but there’s no scent to try to identify.

He leans closer to the island and loses his balance, pitching forward. His right hand shoots out to catch him, but it lands on something that slides his palm forward more. Just before he slams his head into the wood he throws his left hand into the counter, hissing at the contact, but it stops his momentum.

“You’re clumsier than I thought,” Boyd says, closer behind him than he expected. Stiles says nothing, but sits back on his ass and lifts up his right hand. Underneath is a single claw, which has scratched a little flap of skin off his palm. He winces, but holds it up to the light. Boyd says, “Is that…?”

Stiles nods, squinting. “Can you tell whose?”

“No,” Boyd says, sounding frustrated. Stiles turns the claw in his hand. Rust colored flecks of dust coats his fingertips, flaking off from the claw. He wants it to be Derek’s, but he doesn’t know that it will matter, in the end. Either it’s Derek’s or one of the alphas, and it will guide him to them either way. He sets the claw aside, tucking it away in his tool box. When he looks up, Boyd and Lydia are both watching him. Lydia narrows her eyes and looks away, scowling at the couch cushions, but Boyd keeps looking, analytical. Stiles shifts under his stare, tucking his left hand behind him.

Finally, Boyd says, “What else do you need?”

Stiles brows crease. “What?”

Boyd glares. “Don’t be like that. The claw is for the spell, right? The one you’re gonna use to find Derek.” Slowly, Stiles nods. “So, what else do you need?”

Stiles remembers the first time he met Boyd after he turned. He remembers, suddenly and clearly, thinking that he was more dangerous than the others, because he was patient and calm as well as smart. He says, “Something of Derek’s. Something with, like, meaning. A personal item. And, um, if we could find something that’s more definitely the alphas? Like a hair or some blood or something? That would be cool.”

Boyd nods resolutely and wanders away in search. Allison is watching him, narrow-eyed in a way that makes him nervous; too analytical, seeing him. He hides his hands again, loping into the kitchen and just looking. It’s well used, he notices; there are baking pans and mixing bowls in the sink, used recently, just waiting to be washed. A loaf of semi-fresh bread sits on the counter. Stiles sighs, running his fingers over the counter top.

Boyd clears his throat behind him, and Stiles turns around. He has a shirt in his hands, and Stiles’ brows crease; he recognizes it vaguely. “Here,” Boyd says, thrusting it at him. At Stiles’ questioning look, he adds, “Something with meaning. He sleeps with it sometimes.” Abruptly, Stiles realizes that the shirt is one of his, or used to be. His throat closes. He takes the shirt and sets it aside.

He doesn’t know how to find something of the alphas. He walks out of the kitchen, checking his watch. 146 minutes down and he feels nauseous. He needs to find Derek. He _needs_ to.

“Stiles,” Lydia says, soft, and he goes to her, where she’s standing at the foot of the couch. She points to the ground by the coffee table, where a patch of rust the size of an Oreo marks the floor. He exhales in a rush, his hand going to his stomach, where the magic is doing flips. “I found it when I moved the cushions.”

“Lydia,” Stiles breathes, taking her hand and kissing it, “you are a godsend.” He crouches next to it. The patch is dry now, but it’s thicker than what was on the claw, and doesn’t flake away when he touches it. It feels - wrong, in a way he can’t quantify but that curdles the magic in his stomach. He stands, going to his toolbox and getting out a knife and a small glass jar, like what Deaton used to store the mountain ash, only smaller. On his way back he pauses mid step, a thought occurring to him. He looks up and Allison and Lydia are both watching him, Boyd in his periphery.

“Stiles?” Allison says.

“I think the blood is Jennifer’s,” Stiles says. He thinks the blood is the spell, or part of it, the one that’s blocking their smell. His mind is racing. If he lifts the blood then the betas will be able to track the alphas, but he needs it for the spell or it’s not going to work. But the betas - they can’t track the alphas, because that’s what they want, or at least the second best. God, but without it he can’t find Derek, and if he can’t find Derek then what will he do - what will he _do_ -

“Stiles,” Allison says, suddenly at his elbow, a hand on his arm, and he breathes out. “What do you need?”

He closes his eyes and turns away from her, his left hand bracing himself for support against the couch. The pain anchors him, and he lets himself run through scenario after scenario, running outcomes and testing his logic and making calculations as quick as he can. If he can think his way through this, then he can win. He just needs to think.

He doesn’t open his eyes, but he turns back to face them. “Okay,” he says, settling. “Okay. Boyd. I know you’ve never done this before, but I need - can you call the betas? Like Derek does. A command. Tell them to come straight here, no detours. Can you do that?”

There’s a silence. “I’ve never done it before.”

Stiles makes a noise in his throat. “That doesn’t mean you can’t. They listen when you talk, you just _don’t talk_.” Silence. Stiles finds himself fiddling with the bandage on his hand now. “Can you do that for me?”

He hears Boyd swallow. The faucet is dripping in the kitchen, and Lydia and Allison are breathing next to him, and he can faintly hear the cars on the street as they pass. The moment feels strange in its stillness and its silence. He is holding his breath.

Boyd exhales. “I can try.”

Stiles looks down, smiles. His eyelids flicker, but he’s still - he closes them again, listens to Boyd’s footsteps as he wanders away. What to do now. He thinks he knows - he has steps - but the order is still being sorted. He opens his eyes and checks his watch. 161 minutes. It feels like it’s been too long, but they’re a lot farther along then they were 10 minutes ago. He looks to Allison.

“How comfortable do you feel talking to your father about this?” He asks her. He sees the surprise on her face, and the way that it shutters closed.

“Not comfortable,” she grinds out, and he nods, but he keeps pressing anyway.

“Allison, we’re going to need his help.”

He sees her hand go to her knife and grip tight, and he swallows but keeps his eyes on her face. “He isn’t a big fan of Derek Hale,” she says, and he winces.

“Neither are you.”

She grinds her teeth visibly. “I’m here for you, you bastard!”

He raises an eyebrow. “And you don’t think he’ll do the same for you?”

She stops, and swallows. She flexes her hand around her knife. Lydia lays a hand on her arm, and he thinks that maybe he pushed a little too far, but he can’t find it in himself to regret it. Eventually, she asks, “What do you need?”

He’s beginning to hate that question. “Nothing right now. But when I’m done I might -” he pauses. He feels unsure, suddenly, of how far his friends are willing to go, of how far his friends will see him go before they don’t want to be his friends anymore. He’s frightened of how far he finds himself willing to go. “My goal is to get Derek back,” he says, firmer than he feels. “However much it takes. I might need your father to clean up bodies, or I might just need him to ensure that the alphas leave.”

Neither of them look disgusted. In fact, neither of them even looks surprised. He swallows, wringing his hands together without thought, the pain in his left keeping him sharp, focused. Allison nods and walks away, the opposite direction of wherever Boyd went. Stiles didn’t keep track of the beta’s destination, and he doesn’t look for him now. Instead, he looks to Lydia.

“Lydia, darling,” he says, going back to the blood patch and crouching down next to it, just looking. He can feel the magic coming from it, making his skin crawl. “How comfortable are you with magic?”

She says, “Um,” and he nods.

“Right. So, how comfortable could you _become_ with helping me perform a spell within the next five minutes?”

They’re both distracted by the sound of a howl from outside. Stiles feels it faintly in his chest, more the power than the pull of it, but kneeling next to him Lydia gasps, grasping his arm to stay balanced. From by the staircase, Allison says, “I think it worked.” Stiles feels the ticking of time in his chest, and swallows his panic by making his left hand into a fist.

Lydia looks at him. She says, “I think I could learn.”

 

Boyd is pacing behind him.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Boyd asks. Stiles, crouched on the floor, just gives him a look, and Lydia does the same, kneeling across from him.

“It has to work, so it will,” Allison says, repeating what Stiles told her not five minutes ago when she asked the same question. She’s not looking at Boyd when she says it, but at Stiles. He swallows and looks away, watching Lydia as she draws the pentacle.

“ _How_ does it work?” Boyd asks, and Stiles shrugs. In truth, he’s not a hundred percent certain. Pentagrams are ritualistic in nature; according to Chinese mythologies, the pentagram’s five points represent five elements: water, earth, air, fire, and spirit. In truth, the power of the pentagram is much more personalized than that, with the star only used as a focus point, a channel. The only real essentials are groundwork and intention. The addition of any of the elements adds power, and vary depending on what you hope to achieve. He says, “I don’t think it matters.” He knows how the pentagram works, and the pentacle - a five pointed star inside a circle - works much the same, adding an additional measure of protection and control.

“Why is Lydia drawing it and not you?” Boyd asks, and Stiles shrugs again. He’s tense as he watches her complete another point of the star in chalk. He does know. The groundwork is the most essential bit, and he doesn’t feel steady enough right now to know that nothing would go wrong if he drew it himself.

She’s drawing the circle now, her progress slow, her hands steady. Stiles swallows as he watches her, feeling his sweat pooling in the small of his back. He is so, so tense. He clenches his left hand into a fist again, and looks up to find Allison watching him. Her eyes are suspicious, and he looks away. He stands, gathering his things, and begins placing them on the points of star before she’s finished drawing it. The topmost point he leaves empty. The two just beneath it, he places first the t-shirt, then across from that the claw. (Once Jennifer’s blood was lifted, Boyd was able to identify that the claw was Derek’s). The point beneath the claw he scrapes out Jennifer’s blood from the jar, and across from that he places a strand of long dark hair that Allison found tangled in the sheets.

“Stiles,” Lydia says, and he looks and sees that she’s waiting for him to close the circle. He takes a breath and grabs hold of his spark. He steps over her lines, careful not to smudge the chalk, and stands in the center of the star. She waits for him to nod before she finishes drawing the circle.

Stiles feels it the moment it connects, a jolt in his gut. There is no dramatic flare of fire, but the chalk lines glow white and he feels it in his fingertips. He walks to the topmost point, reminds himself to breathe, and undoes the bandage on his hand. He thinks _help me find Derek_ and clenches his fist a few times, until a few drops of blood fall on the last point. The magic sizzles in response to his blood, and he hisses, because he feels it now.

The spell is written in a language he doesn’t understand, but he chants it anyway, reading it from his spellbook, thinking _Derek, Derek, Derek._ He can feel the pentacle swelling, clawing up his throat, and he keeps going, going, until it bursts.

It pops in his head like a bubble, and he has a fleeting vision of a lonely warehouse and the feeling of Derek and Jennifer inside. For a moment, he feels them in his gut, so strong he can choke on them, and he thinks, _yes, yes, I can find them now_ , when the vision fades and the words are done and the chalk no longer glows.

It’s quiet for a minute. Then, Allison sighs and Lydia says, “It didn’t work, did it? You can’t find him.”

He grits his teeth. There is a hurricane in his chest, and he wants to scream. It had to work. It _had_ to, because they have to find them and what else are they going to do? What are they going to do now? God, he has to find Derek.

“Stiles?” Allison says, and his jaw hurts with how hard he’s grinding his teeth. He’s going to find Derek. He is.

What does he need. What does he need. He clenches his fists to make himself focus, and once he does, he realizes the riot in his chest is the magic, the magic that’s not his. He thinks, _this will be enough, it has to be_ . He wrangles it in his mind, but when he tries to grab it it shimmies away. He thinks of how he approached the nemeton, how he knelt in the dirt and pulled out his knife and said, “Please. I have to find him. Please. Please, help,” and slashed his palm, and he tries it again that way. He reaches out, touches it’s edges, lets it feel him, lets it sit alongside his pulse in his throat, and then he asks, _please_.

There is a warmth in it, a liveness, and he knows it’s accepted him.

Blood drips through his fist onto the chalk of the pentacle.

He gasps with the force of it. Something inside him snaps; the magic is not in him, it is him. It is him, and it is lines in the earth and he collapses to the ground. The lines are tracing a path, and he sinks to his knees and closes his eyes so he can see better. He forces himself not to get lost inside this riot. It’s not images, it’s feelings, energies. He is where the lines are tracing. They take him to that same lonely warehouse, and he’s choking, because he feels the darkness that is Jennifer and the glee in her, and a moment later, like a punch to his solar plexus, there is Derek, distinct, a night sky, tinged with red and clouded with pain. He gives a groan. He wants to reach out, but when he tries the feeling of it all fades away, until he’s kneeling clasping his head inside a chalk pentagram and all that’s left is a thrumming in his pulse like a line to Derek and the image of that warehouse.

Lydia is saying, “Don’t touch him! We don’t know what’s happening! It could kill him!”

Allison says, “It looks like it _is_ killing him, Lydia! Look at him, we have to -”

“Boyd,” Stiles says. His voice is so, so hoarse. He hasn’t opened his eyes yet. God. With every pound of his pulse he sees the lines like a map to Derek, and as fast as his heart is beating he’s getting dizzy. “How far out are the betas?”

There’s a pause. Allison breathes, “Oh, thank god, you asshole,” and then Boyd says, “Just over five minutes out, I’d say.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. He needs to think. Okay. He knows where Derek is now. He can feel that he’s in bad shape. They don’t have a lot of time, but he could feel Jennifer and at least four other alphas, and he might be able to face Jennifer with help, but not Jennifer and four betas. Okay. Okay. Does he have a plan.

“We need to go,” he says, not standing. “Boyd, can you wash the pentagram away, once we leave? And keep the betas here. I can’t have them getting in the way.”

There’s a moment of pause, then Lydia says, “What?” and Allison repeats, “ _Getting in the way?_ ” He opens his eyes to look at them.

“I’m sorry?” Stiles says, not understanding the anger on their faces. He glances at his watch. 178 minutes. They don’t have time for this.

“Do you not remember,” Allison says slowly, her teeth gritted, “what happened the last time you fought with the alphas? You got a concussion! Jennifer clawed out your brain! You bled in my bed sheets! And that was just a message!”

He blinks at her. “And?”

“ _And?_ Are you fucking with me, Stilinski?” She looks about ready to scream in frustration. “You could _die!”_

He blinks again. He’s not been as clear as he needed to, then. He beckons Lydia forward, and though she also looks like she wants to kill him, she helps him to his feet. “If it saves Derek,” Stiles says, not flinching, meeting Allison’s eyes, “then I’m willing to.”

Boyd blinks. Allison blinks. Lydia says, “ _idiot_ ,” in such a scathing tone that he worries she’s just going to drop him.

He rubs at his eye. There is a storm in his head. Stiles feels his panic viscerally, thrumming with his pulse, thrumming with the pain he feels from Derek. They don’t have time for this. “Look,” he says, because they’re still gaping at him, “I’m not going to die. I’ve got a plan.” Well, kind of. “But what I need to make you understand is that what Jennifer wants is this territory. She’ll do whatever she can to get it. She killed her entire pack because she felt underappreciated. She has no limits, and now she has Derek, and do you understand how fucking _scary_ that is? Like, as a concept? She’ll either kill Derek and force his betas to submit or she’ll kill Derek’s betas so that he’s too weak to stay alive and be forced to give it to them. She’s in the process of the former right now, and I’m not about to hand the latter option to her on a silver fucking platter. So, if that’s clear enough for you,” he says through his teeth, feeling a wildness in him that demands his attention, “then I’d _request_ that the betas stay here.” He meets their eyes, one by one. “Is that all right with you? You okay with that?”

Boyd nods. Allison has her arms crossed over her chest, looking stormy but accepting. She gives a grudging nod. Still holding Stiles’ arm, Lydia says, “touchy,” but he recognizes the terror in it. He squeezes her arm and steps away from her, packing his supplies away in his toolbox, his back to them. Now that they can’t see his face, Stiles feels safe in taking a breath. His heart is pounding in his chest and his breaths keep stuttering and he is so, so tense. He’s in way over his head. He’s not strong enough or powerful enough to beat them but he’s the only one who can, but he’d really rather not die. God. _God_.

He makes himself stop. He squeezes his fists. The pain in his left is sharp and grounding; it helps him to exhale, helps him to breathe - inhale _12345_ exhale _1234567,_ repeat. Their eyes are harsh on his back, but it’s only when he’s able to breathe again, able to think around the screaming in his head, able to school his features, that he stands again. “Let’s go,” he says, and they do.

 

Deaton has an arm barred across his chest and his back pressed against the wall the moment Stiles steps in the door. His face is perfectly still, but there’s fire in his eyes. Allison has her bow drawn on him in a second, and Lydia is saying, “What do you think you’re doing!”

“What did you do?” Deaton asks. His voice is even and low, but Stiles would feel better if he was yelling.

“It’s not what you think,” Stiles says, trying to decide if he should be making eyes at Allison to _put the weapon the fuck down_ or at Deaton like _please just listen to me_ , but in the end he does neither, instead squirming his arm out from where he’s pinned and showing Deaton his cut, unbandaged. Deaton takes his hand and examines it, turning it over, running his fingers over the edges of the cut. When he looks up, he still doesn’t look reassured, but he steps away, letting Stiles breathe again.

“What did you do?” Deaton repeats, but Stiles doesn’t answer him. He’s glaring at Allison, who has her bow drawn still, pointed at Deaton. Her chest is heaving, and there is something wild in her eyes.

Softly, he says, “Allison,” and she looks at him. Her eyes are wide. Lydia places a hand on her arm, and she startles and then lowers the bow, swallowing. He turns back to Deaton. “It’s not what you think. You know I couldn’t do the ritual on my own anyway.”

Deaton’s jaw clenches. “And yet, here you are.”

They don’t have time for this. “Deaton. Think. I couldn’t.”

“Then _what?”_

“Goddammit, Deaton! I _asked!”_

Deaton stills. He swallows, examines Stiles with critical eyes. Stiles tries not squirm. Lydia and Allison are watching too, and Allison looks like she understands for the first time, like what’s she’s been seeing the whole night just had a screen removed. “How?” Deaton asks eventually, and Stiles shrugs.

“I went to the tree, and I asked for help finding Derek. I gave it my blood. And - this happened.” He holds up his hand like evidence.  He remembers the dirt on his skin as he knelt at the base of the tree. He remembers the feeling of _otherness_ , how he felt swallowed up in the sheer presence of it. He remembers that when he pressed his palm against it, it felt _alive,_ and like it finally gave him permission to panic. Once that was done, he breathed, and he planned, and when he was done, he said, _I have to get him back. He’s everything. Everything to me. Please. I have to find him. Please. Please, help,_ and dripped his blood on the roots. The power that rushed into him was strange, other, an organism unto itself that found no home in him but made a place anyway. He pressed his palm to the tree, a bloody handprint and a thank you and so much else, and he left.

Deaton’s eyes are wide with wonder. “Incredible,” he breathes, and Stiles knows that his mind is going to the same place that Stiles’ went to; if the tree responds like this as a favor, what will happen when they perform the ritual? What will the power be like then? Most of all, he knows that Deaton is thinking that he was the right choice for this after all, and feels sick to his stomach.

"Deaton," Stiles says, pushing past the nausea because Derek doesn't have time for this. "I need your help."

 

Stiles doesn’t notice when Boyd first walks in. He’s sitting shirtless on Deaton’s table, the metal cold through his jeans, and he’s hissing breaths through his teeth and clenching his fists as Deaton paints runes onto his skin. The runes burn as they take, and he’s resolutely staring at the floor through the pain of it and therefore misses Boyd’s silent entrance until Lydia says, sharply, “Boyd, what the hell are you doing here?” and his head snaps up.

Boyd doesn’t flinch, instead lifting his chin higher and holding eye contact with Stiles. “I came to help.”

Teeth gritted, Stiles says, “I _told_ you to stay at the loft.”

“No, you told the betas to stay at the loft,” Boyd replies, and Stiles fumes, opening his mouth for a retort when Boyd speaks again, taking a step further into the room, imposing past the doorway. “Tell me something, Stilinski. What’s your plan? How do you plan to defeat the alphas?”

Stiles clenches his jaw and releases, looking away then back again.

“That wasn’t rhetorical. You can answer that. Unless, of course, you don’t _have_ a motherfucking plan.”

Stiles glares.

“See, I have math with you, and I’ve seen what you’ve been doing all day. You’ve been running numbers, plans. And the numbers don’t add up, right? Lydia’s shit at self defense, so of course you’re not taking her, and you’re not willing to risk the betas, so that leaves you and Allison. The problem is, Allison is better long range and she’s more useful as a secret weapon than a first line of defense anyway, but you can’t fight all of them off for long enough to even put her in play. And even if you could work past all of that, what kind of odds is two humans against five-odd alphas anyway?”

Stiles maintain his glare for an impressive minute longer before he burns out, scrubbing a hand over his face and deflating. “What’s your point, Boyd?” Absently, he realizes that’s the most words he’s ever heard Boyd speak at once. It makes sense that it’s to tell him off.

Boyd shrugs. “I even it out. You and me are front line, Allison waiting in the wings, we can at least make a statement. And before you start, I know why you didn’t send the betas in, and you’re right. But I’m not the entire pack, and you need my help.”

Stiles looks away at the metal of the table, considering. Boyd is right and Stiles knows it, and he knows that Boyd knows he knows it, too.  And he’s right, too, that their odds are much better three against five-odd, especially when the addition is werewolf.

He doesn’t like being wrong.

He turns back around. “Okay, fine.” Boyd grins, small and pleased, but he sobers immediately. Stiles gestures Deaton on with the runing and turns to the group, looking at each of them in turn, assessing. “Here’s the plan.”

 

“I hate this plan,” Lydia says, standing scowling with her arms crossed over her chest.  

“I don’t love it either, Lyds,” Stiles says, loading his things back into the back of the Jeep. He leaves the hatch open for Allison to deposit her weapons and goes back around the front to where Lydia is standing.

“Then why are you using it! It’s not clever! There’s not enough strategy for it to matter! Your tricks really are just tricks, not even real magic, or at least not enough to fight Jennifer!”

He looks at her, sees that she looks anxious, not angry like she’s pretending to be, her forehead creased and her hair falling out of her bun in chunks. “It’s been four hours, Lydia,” he says softly. “Derek doesn’t have time for strategy.”

Lydia closes her eyes for a single moment. “Fine. Just - be _careful,_ you absolute fucking dumbass. And keep them safe, too, okay.”

He gives her a weak grin, feeling the nemeton connecting him to Derek in a way that tugs in his gut. “You know me, Lydia. I’m always careful.”

She snorts tiredly. Allison slams the back to his Jeep and goes around to the passenger side, waiting for Boyd to climb in the backseat before she sits in shotgun, looking at him through the window. She looks fierce, determined, and he feels a swell of pride and worry for her, for them. They have to make it out of this, and so they will, but - _god_ , Lydia’s right, it really isn’t a stellar plan.

Lydia squeezes his hand, and he looks back to her. “You’ve got this,” she says, soft, and he nods and climbs in the Jeep.

“I’ll be waiting at the loft. You better all make it back in one piece!” Lydia calls as they pull out of the lot, leaving her alone.

 

The warehouse sits in the abandoned industrial part of town, towards the edge of the city. It wasn’t easy to find, despite the nemeton tug-tugging him along the whole time, and by the time they pull up the sky is overcast and the wind is harsh.

They meet at the back of the Jeep, Allison pulling out her bow and Stiles first his gloves and then his bat. “They’ll have heard us coming,” Boyd says, nodding in the direction of the warehouse, and Stiles nods. He’s counting on it, in fact.

“Stick to the plan, and we’ll be fine,” Stiles says, more confidently than he feels. He goes to Allison and presses his lips against her hair for one final instruction, and then they part, her going behind the warehouse and them through the doors.

There are more of them than he expected. They stand clustered around Jennifer, seven of them and her all waiting for him, shifted already and menacing as fuck. They look startled to see just Stiles and Boyd walk in, but he pays them little mind past the initial look; he’s searching for Derek. He can feel that he’s here in the warehouse, though the connection is fading now that he’s here, now that _help me find him_ has passed, but he doesn’t see him until Jennifer steps forward, and there he is. Stiles’ breath catches.

He’s hanging from the back wall in chains, sparks jumping from the metal. He’s covered in blood and he looks unconscious and shit, shit shit shit shit _shit_ -

Boyd lays a hand on his arm, and he looks back to Jennifer, who’s approaching them. She has that same look about her as the first time he met her, effortlessly elegant, neck arched and beautiful but something about her off, threatening.

“I didn’t expect them to send the human,” she says casually.

Stiles can feel his heart pounding in his chest, and he knows they can hear it too, but he bares his teeth. She chuckles softly, the sound pleasant. “The red suits you,” she says, nodding towards his hoodie.

“If you’re gonna fight the big bad wolf, you gotta have the uniform,” he replies, and she laughs again, sending a chill up his spine. He tightens his grip on his bat and feels Boyd adjusting his weight next to him.

“Make your demands, little red,” the other female, Kali, says, impatient, coming up behind Jennifer with her clawed toes clicking on the concrete floors. He feels the threat in it and swallows. It’ll be soon now.

“You know what we want,” he says, raising his chin, impressed by how little his voice wavers. He is thrumming with energy, and he can’t tell what is the panic and what is the magic. “We want Derek.”

They are a smirking assembly, red-eyed and mocking and underestimating. They laugh raucously, echoing off the walls, and Stiles is distressed to see that Derek doesn’t even twitch at the sound. Oh, shit.

Jennifer smiles, crooked and off-balance. “I’m afraid you can’t have him, human.”

He shifts his grip on the bat, his eyes flicking to the upper floor of the warehouse. It’s mostly collapsed, but some of the floor remains along the edges, in the corners. He looks back to Jennifer, whose eyes are red now. He swallows, says, “I was afraid you were going to say that,” and hears the arrow whizzing through the air a quarter second after the alphas scatter to avoid it. Still, it manages to hit one (a brute that he recognizes from his first personal encounter with them) in the shoulder, and he howls and falls to one knee.

When he looks back towards Jennifer, Kali is in a defensive crouch, and she’s growling. She snarls, “hunters,” and then, eyes narrowing, a howl, “ _wolfsbane,”_ and launches herself at him.

Boyd blocks her, meets her with a snarl and a swipe of claws, but it hardly matters because all hell has broken loose. The one Allison hit is on his feet again, and they’re descending on Boyd and Stiles as one entity of claws and teeth.

Stiles takes a deep breath, centers himself and feels the magic in his chest and his in the pit of his stomach. He raises his bat and widens his stance, and when the first one charges him, he’s ready, swinging the bat and meeting the alpha’s skull with a _crack!_ The runes on the bat glow blue when they connect, sending the alpha flying with a yelp into the others.

He catches his breath because it worked, holy fuck _it worked_ , and wades into the fray.

There’s only seven alphas, but it feels like there must be more. Boyd is somewhere behind him, snarling and howling and crashing again and again with Kali and others, but the rest are around him, swiping their claws at him and trying to get through his defenses. The runes on his arms and torso are strong (runes for strength, protection, ones to ward off foreign magic and ones to amplify his own), but only as strong as his belief is in the moment, and it’s hard to remember in the heat of it all. He’s bleeding he thinks, from scratches on his back and his sides. He’s thinking _no teeth no teeth_ so desperately he might be willing it so.

The bat works like Stiles hoped it would, runed all to hell and coated in wolfsbane, making the warehouse smells of burning flesh and blood, but the bat only works as well as he can swing it, and when it’s four of them on him at once it’s difficult to find the range. Allison’s arrows are whizzing in and hitting the alphas where it hurts, but they’re a determined, howling lot. He swings through the pain of it, swings and swings until a kick and a swipe of claws knocks the bat from his hand and he drops to the ground and ducks away as quickly as he can. He thinks, desperately, over the constant track of _oh shit_ playing in his head, _you can’t touch me_ , and when they chase after him they’re thrown back in a flash of blue, just long enough for him to get his feet under him again.

He can’t hear past the pounding of blood in his ears and his own breathing. Somewhere off to the side, Boyd gives a roar and he hears a whimper in response, and the alphas are wary of approaching him now, but he’s bleeding and dizzy and _Derek doesn’t have time for this_ and then there’s a flash of light from the top corner of the warehouse and Stiles yells, “Boyd!” just before the arrow explodes, sound and sparks and smoke.

His ears ring for a long time after that, and Stiles comes to crouched on the floor, head in his heads and smoke in his lungs. He lifts his head slowly and sees the alphas, lying and groaning at his feet, clutching their heads and whimpering. He swallows and sees the blood pooling on the floor, their blood. He thinks _good_ and is disgusted by the thought, and pushes himself to standing.

Allison is still on the far side of the warehouse, the ground floor now, and Boyd is shaking his head out and kneeling behind him, but it’s Jennifer he’s focusing on, Jennifer who stands snarling and red-eyed and advancing towards him.

He spits blood from his mouth and watches her approach him. She isn’t subtle about it; the genteel is gone. She is baring her teeth and glaring. He can feel her magic on the air just as he sees it start to gather round her skin, grey-green and dark, making his skin crawl.

“ _You,”_ she says, snarls, and he says, “They’re not dead, you know,” but she growls louder to silence him. “You don’t get to _win_ .” Her magic smells like rot, cloying over the smell of fresh blood and burning flesh. Stiles waves Boyd back down behind him; he needs her focused all on him, because this is going to work. This _has_ to work, and so it will. “I am going to fucking _murder_ you,” she says, stepping over Kali’s breathing body on the floor.

Stiles swallows and picks his bat up from the ground. One of his gloves has torn, and the wolfsbane stings his palms, but he grips it tight and raises it at her, a challenge. “Go ahead,” he says, as steady as he can. In the background, Allison unplugs whatever generator it was attached to Derek, and he speaks before Jennifer can notice the electrical buzzing has stopped. “I’m ready.”

Her lips are curled over her teeth, uglier than he’s ever seen her. “You’re a fool for him,” she snarls, and he snarls back, tugging the magic up from his chest and thinking _please_ as it curls over his hands.

“Always,” he replies, and she fucking _roars_ , her eyes red as she charges him.

He’s ready, his feet planted and this strange, unruly magic gathered as best he can, and when she meets him, her magic choking him before she even reaches him, he thinks _you can’t touch me_ and it ripples out like a shield, knocking her backwards through the air. He sees Boyd edging around behind him towards Allison, helping Derek out of his chains. He takes a deep breath and knows that this is what he needs.

Jennifer is pushing herself to her standing again, eyes red red red but unsteady on her feet, and he doesn’t really want to kill her (other than the part of him that does), but he doesn’t know if he’ll have a choice. He raises the bat, and watches with a mad sort of satisfaction as she struggles her way towards him, weakened from the blast and from the tree’s magic pushing on her.

She draws out knives from sheathes at her sides, and he sees them, but she’s moving faster than he anticipated and she gets a solid slash across his shoulder and chest before he swings the bat hard, connecting with her temple and cheekbone.

He doesn’t watch her fall back; instead, he watches as Derek slumps forward, totally unconscious, into Boyd’s arms. He’s bleeding a lot, and he’s bruised to hell, but the shackles are gone. Stiles meets Allison’s eyes and gestures to the door, says,  “my jeep, now,” as he presses the flat end of the bat to the juncture of Jennifer’s throat.

Her teeth are bared, and her pack is stirring around them, but Stiles isn’t worried; he’s watching smoke rise around her collarbones as the wolfsbane burns her, and he can feel the tree buzzing against his skin, protecting him. He says, “Here’s how this is going to work,” and she snarls, an ugly, wet sound. He curls his lip over his teeth, bared and violent, and presses the bat harder against her throat. She cuts off with a gurgle. “Here’s how this is going to work,” he repeats, with emphasis. She’s trembling, and he’s sick and satisfied with it ( _you can’t touch me_ ). “You are going to take your pack, and you are going to _leave._ You won’t touch anyone or anything on your way out. Your injured will wait until you’re out of this territory. Are we understood?” She gives a jerky, tight nod, careful of the bat at her throat.

Boyd and Allison pass behind him. Derek is making small sounds of pain at the movement, and Stiles feels a violent spike in his stomach, anger or magic or desperation. He leans forward, in her face, wild and in control for the first time maybe ever. “This territory,” he grits, “is _mine_ . If you come calling again, _I’ll_ be the one you answer to. Do you understand?” Her eyes are wide with fear, and when she gives no reaction he shakes her. “ _Do you understand?”_

She swallows. Blood trickles around the bat at the movement. He is sickly gratified by it; her blood, this time, not his or any of the others. The nod that Jennifer gives is slight, but he sees it. He bares his teeth at her and pulls the bat away. The door to the warehouse slams closed as Boyd and Allison leave. “Good.”

When he walks away, his hands are shaking.

 

“Why isn’t he healing?” is the first thing Allison asks him when he gets back to the jeep. He feels untethered and shaky, but her eyes are wilder than his as she leans over Derek in the backseat, pressing what looks like a shirt to the massive cuts stretching across Derek’s torso.

“What?” is all Stiles can think to say, two steps behind with pain finally setting in. He tosses his bat in the truck of the jeep, thunking dully against Allison’s bows.

“Why the fuck don’t you have a basic first aid kit, Stilinski?” Boyd shouts from the front seat, where he’s rummaging around.

“What?” Stiles says again, but he’s catching up now. He pushes Allison out of the way - he can see the wildness in her eyes growing vacant as blood bubbles up onto her hands, and he needs her to be as present as possible. “It’s in the backseat,” he says absently, his mind on Derek and assessing the damage. “With the toolbox.”

Derek. He’s - there’s blood everywhere. He’s got a deep scratch going from his left collarbone all the way to his right hip, and it’s so deep he sees bone in some places. His wrists are scraped and raw, and he’s got a faint dusting of bruises everywhere, but especially around his throat. His face is purpling with bruises and scraped clean of skin in some parts, bleeding sluggishly. He’s got burns on his arms and torso, claw marks making holes in his jeans. He’s covered in blood and unconscious.

“Stiles. _Stiles_.” He blinks. Allison is holding his toolbox and looking at him, Boyd just behind her. “What do we do?”

Right. Right. Think, Stilinski, think. You always figure it out. This time is no different.

His mind is a broken record, scratching and skipping against the vinyl.

“Boyd, you drive. We need to go. Allison, call your father. Have him make sure the alphas get out of this territory. We need to drive, go back to the loft.”

“But, Derek is still -”

“ _Allison_ . I don’t know, okay? I’ve got to - I’ll figure it out. I’ll make him better. Just - _drive_.”

Boyd takes hold of Allison’s upper arm, and Stiles snatches his toolbox from her before she’s dragged away. Stiles doesn’t watch them climb into the front seats; instead, he puts the toolbox down and gets in the backseat, pillowing Derek’s head on his lap. The car starts, and Stiles - thinks.

Obviously he knows that the electricity would have stopped the shift, a lesson he learned from none other than Gerard Argent, but the electricity is gone now, so that shouldn’t be a factor anymore. Injuries from an alpha take longer to heal, and he doesn’t know if the fact that Derek is an alpha as well would negate that at all, but it’s not that he’s healing slowly, it’s that he’s not healing at all. So why -?

His mind skips and sticks. His hands pressing the t-shirt are covered in blood; it soaks into his jeans, the seats. Blood leaks from the wounds, a sluggish but steady flow, pouring warm and thick onto his skin.

His mind restarts.

“Allison, I need your phone.”

She gestures to it, at her ear with her talking into it. Her father. Right. “Boyd, yours then.”

Boyd grunts, but after a moment he passes it back. Stiles takes it, wiping his hand on his sweatshirt. He dials the number from memory, and she picks up on the first ring. “Stiles, what -”

“Are you at the loft?”

“What? Yeah, I’m with the betas, and they’re freaking the fuck out. Please tell me you have good news.”

He doesn’t answer her. “Lydia. Talk me through this.”

“What? Stiles, what’s going on?”

“We have Derek, but he’s not healing and I think I know why and I need to be have a plan to fix it by the time we get to the loft. Talk me through this.”

There’s a pause. Then, “Okay. What’s going on?” Her voice is calmer now, her crisis voice, clinical enough that his mind narrows in focus just from hearing it.

He explains to her Derek’s wounds and his state, explains about the electricity and the alpha thing, and when he’s done Boyd’s hands are clenched tight around the steering wheel and Lydia just breathes on the other end. “I don’t understand why he’s not healing,” Stiles says, removing the soaked tshirt from Derek’s chest and pulling out a rag from his toolbox and using that instead.

“Well,” Lydia says, her calm with a crack in it now. “It’s the blood loss, isn’t it? They cut him all up and then prevented him from healing, and now that he’s able to heal his body is too busy trying to catch up on the blood loss to do anything else. His body is overwhelmed.”

Stiles exhales. “Right.” Allison is muttering to Boyd. He hears _what are they saying? do they know what’s wrong?_ and doesn’t listen to the answer.

“So, what are you going to do about it?” Lydia asks.

He stares into his toolbox, open on the floor of the jeep. His mind is racing, but he feels disconnected from it. He’s so tired.

In his lap, Derek gives a weak groan. His mind snaps back into focus.

“I’ve got to go. Get the guest bedroom ready for me, and - handle the betas.”  Lydia makes a sputtering sound, but he hangs up. “Boyd, drive faster.”

 

When they pull up at the loft, the betas are waiting and Stiles is ready for them. He climbs out of the jeep in a hurry and grabs his toolbox, says, “take him into the guest bedroom,” and doesn’t wait to see if they’re listening to him before he heads up. Lydia is waiting for him and Allison is directly behind him. “Allison, will you take this upstairs?” He says, shoving his toolbox at her, and she takes it and does as he says.

He peels his shirts off, sticky with blood and in tatters. “Lydia, would you -” she pushes him in the kitchen, wipes him down with a washcloth as he washes his hands. The betas come in carrying Derek, Boyd right behind him. He takes on look at Stiles and says, “Before you do anything else, you’re at least slapping some gauze on yourself,” and Stiles is too tired to do more than nod. Lydia gets the first aid kit out from underneath the sink and makes him stand still while she tapes the worst of his cuts. “You can do this,” she says, soft, meeting his eyes, and he swallows and nods, realizes his hands are trembling.

Upstairs, the room is crowded with people staring in horror at Derek, who is bleeding onto the crisp white sheets. “Everyone out,” Stiles says, too tired to be commanding about it, but they all startle and do as he says. “Scott, Lydia, stay.” He would like Allison to stay, too, but he takes one look at her and the wildness in her eyes and knows that’s not an option. Softer, he says, “Allison. It’s going to be okay. You should go.” She stares at him for a long moment before she nods and leaves.

Ignoring the two still in the room, Stiles goes to his toolbox, open on the bedside table. He checks his watch, but he’s lost track of time somewhere in this and he doesn’t know how long it’s been. He scrubs a hand over his face and forces himself to think. Derek needs him.

“Lydia, clean him up, get the blood off his skin, sterilize the wounds. Scott, you follow after her. I need your hands, need you to stitch him up. If you don’t think you can handle that, I’ll get someone else.”

Scott clears his throat. “I can handle it.”

“Good.” He shoves the needle and thread into Scott’s hands and turns back to his toolbox.

The stitching should help, should do a lot, but he doesn’t know that it will be enough. Derek has been bleeding out for somewhere around five hours; his pulse is weak and he’s on his way to dead. The problem is the blood loss. It’ll be great when he stops bleeding, but his body is too far behind trying to produce blood to save him in time. What he needs is magic, but ache of magic behind Stiles’ heart from the nemeton is gone. They’ve got no miracles left, and more than that, _Stiles_ has no miracles left; the only magic he’s got is runes, and runes don’t work on werewolves.

His mind snags, skipping back. He’s missing something, but he doesn’t know what.

 _Runes don’t work on werewolves._ That’s a true statement, at least concerning the kind that would help Derek now; his skin would heal over the burn. Except -

Except that Derek isn’t healing.

Stiles exhales. He reaches for a small jar filled with pale, translucent blue paste and dips his fingers inside. The mixture makes his fingers tingle faintly.

Scott says, “What is that?” and Stiles doesn’t answer him. Instead, he turns to Derek, jar in hand and thinks. What does Derek need first? He gets more of the paste on his fingers. “Stiles, is that wolfsbane?”

Distracted, Stiles says, “Yes,” and smears it on Derek’s skin. Scott is saying something to him in loud, outraged tones, but Stiles doesn’t listen, finishes drawing the rune and watches it burn blue as it takes. _For healing_.

He slumps in relief and looks up. Scott is no longer yelling, instead watching with his mouth slightly parted. Lydia is looking too, her eyes narrowed. When he meets her eyes she nods once, says, “smart,” and turns back to Derek, wiping his wounds with an alcohol-saturated washcloth. Scott says, “What was that?”

“Wolfsbane,” Stiles answers, staring at Derek’s skin and trying to think what to draw next. “So the runes will stick,” and he gets to work. He bumps hands with Scott at one point, stitching Derek closed while Stiles draws runes on his ribs and shoulder. Stamina, strength of heart, healing again.

His left hand, braced against Derek’s hip with the jar clutched in his fingers, slips, pressure on his yet unclosed wound. Derek makes a small pained noise and opens his eyes with a gasp, curling in on himself defensively. Stiles jerks his hand back, but Derek’s fingers grip his wrist weakly. Eyes half open, he mutters, “Stiles,” and Stiles’ heart aches.

“Yeah big guy,” he mutters back, squeezing Derek’s hand. “I got you.” Derek gives him a smile, a twitch of lips more than anything else, but it’s so fond that it aches in Stiles. He finishes the rune he started near on Derek’s ribs, _sleep_ , and as it takes Derek groans. His eyes flutter shut again.

They’re watching him, but he ignores them, instead surveying Derek. Scott is mostly done with the massive claw marks across Derek’s torso; Lydia wiping away stray spots of blood. He’s no longer bleeding, but he’s pale and cold and weak still, not yet healing himself. Stiles needs him to heal himself. He needs him to be alive and well, because otherwise what’s the point?

He feels something welling in his chest, clawing its way up his throat. His eyes are stinging, so he makes himself turn back to his toolbox and draw the knife from the bottom. Sharply, Scott says, “Stiles, why do you have that?”

Stiles ignores him. He needs Derek to be okay. He cuts away the bandage on his left hand and drags just the tip of the knife across the barely-scabbing cut. Scott yanks the knife away from him, but it doesn’t matter, because the blood has already welled up and covered his palm.

He’s aware as he moves onto the bed of Scott trying to pull him away and Lydia laying a soft hand to stop him, her saying, “he knows what he’s doing,” but he doesn’t care. Derek’s skin is cold and clammy through Stiles’ jeans, and he’s careful as he straddles his hips to not bump the stitched-up slashes. He takes a deep breath, thinks, _you will be okay,_ and presses his bleeding palm over Derek’s heart.

Immediately, he feels the burn on Derek’s skin as the handprint takes, and Stiles hisses a breath through his teeth as the burn travels from his palm through his skin (he feels it pushing its way through the fibers of his muscles, all burn) before it settles behind his chest and takes. It sucks away from him, and his breath catches.

When Stiles opens his eyes, he sees a flush of color returning to Derek’s cheeks. Climbing down, his legs collapse underneath him. Scott catches him, concern in his eyes, Lydia behind him. Her mouth tight, she says, “That was a dumb idea, Stilinski.”

He’s so tired. “It’s done now.” He pulls away from Scott, grabs his toolbox, and stumbles his way down the stairs as Lydia murmurs to Scott. The betas stand as he reaches the bottom, the betas and Allison. He’s surprised to see her still here.

“Will he be okay?” Isaac asks, the tendons of his wrists standing out as he clenches his hands together. Eyes half mast, he nods, and Isaac exhales. Erica and Boyd and Jackson all crash around him, hugging. Someone is crying. Stiles drags himself past them, out the door of the loft.

Allison catches his arm at the elevator, and he startles and bangs into the wall. His eyes sting at the pain to his wounds. “Stiles,” Allison says, her eyes big and brown and concerned. Her and Scott really ought to work their shit out; they’re cut from the same cloth. “You don’t look so good.”

He doesn’t feel so good, either, aching and exhausted. “I’m fine.”

Gently, she lays a hand on his arm, and he flinches softly at her touch, blinking rapidly. “Stiles, you’re shaking.”

He realizes she’s right; fine trembles shiver across his skin, his toolbox rattling from the shaking of his hands. He’s surprised he didn’t notice it earlier, but his vision is kind of fuzzy and his ears are ringing. He needs to get out of here, get home and away from the closeness of this pack before it kills him. He can feel the energy leeching out of him bit by bit.

Stiles forces himself to meet her eyes, his gaze not quite focused. “The betas,” he says, slurring a little. He’s so tired. He restarts his sentence. “The betas should call Deaton in the morning. Derek will sleep through the night, probably be fine, but - Deaton.”

Allison nods, earnest, her hand on his arm again and he doesn’t remember when she started touching him but he needs her to stop. “Stiles -” she starts, but he interrupts her. He needs to get out of here.

“I’m leaving now,” and when she opens her mouth, “don’t follow me.”

“I really don’t think you should be driving right now -”

“ _Don’t follow me_.” The elevator comes, finally, and he stumbles in on shaky legs, falls against the back wall and tips his head back against it. He closes his eyes. She’s still talking when the door closes.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go! Woot woot! 
> 
> If you're still with me you're my hero tbh. I know this took forever and I feel pretty shitty about it honestly, but school happened and depression happened and [another fic series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/267931) happened, and I just got so overwhelmed by this goddamn chapter that I was just kinda like nah I'm not dealing with this. But it's here now and the next one will be up sooner than this one was lol.
> 
> Comment if you're still around!
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr!](http://allyaisbae.tumblr.com)


	4. well nothing's wrong but nothing's true

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boyd lays a hand on Derek's ankle, and when Derek looks at him his expression is so profoundly relieved that Derek has to swallow before he says, “What happened? I don't remember much about - what they did to me, but how -?” He doesn't know how to finish the question. He doesn't know.
> 
> The betas exchange glances. Boyd squeezes his ankle. Isaac presses closer to his side. Finally, Lydia clears her throat. “It was Stiles,” she says, soft. “It was all Stiles.”
> 
> or,
> 
> after the battle has past, there's still a lot of damage to repair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this has been 4000000000 years. i am officially the worst. but. here's what i got for you.

Stiles is standing shirtless in front of his bathroom mirror, eyes unfocused, hands braced on the sink, when there’s a knock on the door. “I’m fine, Dad,” he says, trying to inject enough life in his voice to at least be a little convincing.

“I’m not dad,” Melissa fucking McCall says.

“Fuck.” He should put a shirt on if she’s going to come in but he’s got Jennifer’s knife cut across his shoulder and chest, and his back and arms are scratched to hell. He’s so tired, so he just pulls the door open to let her in.

Her eyes widen at the sight of him, standing there bleeding and slumped, and then she’s opening the door wider to step inside with her nurse’s kit clutched in her hands. “Sit down,” she says, gesturing at the lip of the bathtub, and he does as she says. As she examines his face and neck he’s reminded suddenly of Derek, of leaning over him in this room, of who and how they were then, and then there are black spots dancing in his vision.

“ _Hey_ ,” Melissa McCall is saying, kneeling in front of him, a firm hand on his chin. “I’m going to stitch you up, and you’re going to be fine, but I can’t do that if you’re having a panic attack.” She softens, a little, in her eyes and the lines of her face. “You’re okay, Stiles. Just breathe for me, all right?”

He can only stare at her. After a moment, he nods, slow, and she nods back and goes back to prodding at his torso, cleaning the cuts with alcohol.

It’s not so bad. He doesn’t look at the needle, and he hisses through his teeth at the pain of it all, but he stares at the back of the door and allows his mind to fall blank and blissfully quiet. He’s aware that in a couple of hours, when he’s alone in the dark, there will be no quiet; but he has it now, and he lives in it for the slow minutes, as Melissa pulls a needle through his skin and stitches him back together.

“Scott called you,” he says eventually, looking down at her. Her eyes flick up to him, hands stilling, then she goes back to stitching him. The sensation of his skin tugging is strange, but admittedly not any stranger than a sentient tree dumping it’s magic inside of him, so he breathes through it and tries not to think about it too hard.

“Scott is here, actually. Allison called.” He looks at her sharply, but she’s focused on her hands and his skin.

“Scott is here?”

She nods, still not looking at him. Stiles feels something like dread settling in his stomach. “He’s talking to my father, then?” She bites her lip. “He’s telling him everything, right? _Right?”_

“Stiles.” Her hand, firm on his jaw again. He’s remembering, in a sense-memory kind of way, of the times after his mom died, when Melissa and Scott were around more than his dad, when this was an almost daily occurrence - him, gasping, unable to breathe, Melissa and her hand on his face, coaching him through it. He breathes again.

Melissa waits for him to stop trembling to say, “We told him together, before I came up here. He took it - well, I think, considering the circumstances. If he doesn’t later, I will kick his ass. Okay?” There’s something fierce, there, in the way that she’s saying it. Through the haze of tiredness, it takes him a minute to realize that she’s implying she’ll kick his dad’s ass for _Stiles_. Protecting him. He nods, his throat tight, and she stands. “You’re all stitched now. I’m going to send some food up with Scott, which you’re going to eat, and I’m leaving you with some pain meds. Take care of yourself.” She turns to go.

“Melissa,” he says. His voice cracks. He can only stare at her, covered in blood in the white light of the bathroom. Her face softens, and she turns back to him. She says, “You’re going to be okay, Stiles,” before she presses a kiss to his forehead, and leaves.

Stiles breathes for a while. The bathtub is cold through his jeans; Stiles is cold. He’s preparing himself to stand again when Scott is suddenly there, appearing in his view with hands on his arms, gentle hands helping Stiles up and out of the bathroom.

He doesn’t say anything until Stiles is sitting on his bed, eating the sandwich Scott brought him, taking the pills Scott gives him. Then, Scott says, “I’ve been a bad friend to you.”

Stiles looks up. The sandwich is improving things by a lot - he can’t remember the last time he ate, god - but it still takes him too long to understand what Scott is saying. When it dawns on him, he shakes his head from side to side. “No,” he says.

“I have,” Scott says, leaning forward, hands on Stiles’ knees, expression earnest. Eyes shining. Stiles puts his sandwich down. “You needed me, since the summer, since before then, and I wasn’t there for you. I haven’t been.”

“I don’t blame you,” Stiles says, which might be a lie, but he can’t tell.

“I don’t care. I was shitty, and I’m sorry.”

Scott is still looking at him, eyes wet and guilty. Stiles doesn’t want to see Scott like this. He hates this; Scott has been his friend since kindergarten, and they’ve been through it all together, Scott’s dad leaving and Stiles’ mom dying and now _werewolves_. Even remembering how lonely Stiles has been, it’s hard to think that any of it matters, looking at Scott now and remembering everything that happened before Scott got bitten, before Allison. Softly, he says, “It’s okay, Scott. Scotty.”

Later, he might still be angry at Scott. He was before, he thinks, a while ago, and he doesn’t remember if he forgave Scott or decided he was lonely enough that it didn’t matter. He’s not angry now, though, too tired for that. Scott is Scott whether he’s been shitty or not, and a few bad months don’t erase all the bullies they faced together and the movie marathons and the tears, the years of history knitting them together. Brothers.

Stiles tugs on Scott’s hand - not hard, he doesn’t want to pull his stitches - until Scott is moving forward, kneeling on the bed, and they kind of wrap around each other in a hug. Stiles had forgotten, in the last few months, how good Scott’s hugs are, how tight he holds. Scott’s face is damp is at Stiles’ neck, but Stiles’ is too. The sandwich lies forgotten on the bed.

Eventually, Scott pulls away, and Stiles misses the warmth when it’s gone. The tiredness hits him all at once, an exhaustion that feels deeper than his bones, in the marrow of his soul, and he slumps on the bed. Scott says, in a soft voice, “Finish your sandwich, Stiles. Then you can sleep.”

Stiles gives a nod, rubbing at his sternum with the heel of left hand where he can feel his energy being sucked away. He’s glad it’s going to Derek but he wishes he could stop feeling so tired. Scott climbs up next to him on the bed, leaning against the headboard so their legs are tangled together, Stiles slumped in the middle of the bed to avoid putting pressure on his back wounds. They sit in comfortable silence until Melissa calls up the stairs, then Scott is standing with an apologetic look, saying, “Get some sleep, okay? And call in the morning.”

Stiles can only nod tiredly. He stands to throw the paper plate away after Scott leaves, and his head spins. Bracing his head against the wall and blinking, Stiles catches sight of his father coming up the stairs. Despite the fact that he can’t see straight, Stiles takes a step forward into the hallway. “Dad,” he says, and is embarrassed by how his voice shakes. He still remembers staggering in the door, covered in blood and coming down from a panic attack, remembers his dad’s face as he geared up to yell at Stiles only to catch sight of him. Remembered how helpless he looked as Stiles lied to him ( _it’s nothing, dad, don’t worry about it_ with hands that shook).

His dad just looks tired now, says, “Not tonight, son,” but pulls him into a hug before he disappears into his own room.

Stiles expects it to take a long time to fall asleep that night, with the pain and trauma of the day, but the moment his head hits the pillow his world goes dark.

 

Someone is touching him.

Someone is touching him and he wants them to stop, but his bones ache when he tries to move.

“Easy,” Deaton says above him, and Derek opens his eyes.

Deaton meets his eyes, steady as ever, and watches in silence as Derek works to calm his breathing. As he does, he recognizes that he’s in the upstairs bedroom at his loft, wearing his pants and nothing else. The last thing he remembers was the shock of electricity as the alphas hung him at the warehouse. He remembers pain, and nothing past that.

He swallows a few times before he’s able to speak. “What happened?”

Deaton smiles gently. “The alphas kidnapped you, and held you for several hours before we were able to liberate you. You were nearly dead when they brought you here, you’d lost so much blood.”

Looking down at his unmarred chest, Derek can put the rest of the pieces together. Deaton must have worked some kind of miracle, for him to be fine except for an ache in his bones. The man stands up from the chair next to his bed, and Derek lays a hand on his arm. “Thank you,” he says, voice rough with dehydration.

Deaton continues to look down at him in apparent confusion, so Derek elaborates, “For saving my life.”

Deaton pulls away, laughing a little. “Oh, no, I did nothing of the sort. I’m just here to check up on you, make sure your recovery is going smoothly.” At Derek’s confusion, he says, “This was all Stiles.”

Derek’s breath catches. _Stiles_ did this?

He looks up to find Deaton watching him. “This surprises you,” he says, and it’s not a question. Derek continues to gape at him. After a moment of open-mouth shock, Derek says, “he did all of this?”

Deaton wears an expression of something like pride, now. “Yes. It was quite genius, actually, what he was able to do. I imagine your betas would be more than happy to tell you about it. They're waiting outside the door.” And with a nod, Deaton leaves.

Derek is surprised when the betas don't immediately come rushing in, but he takes the opportunity to ease himself to sitting, grimacing as he does. Though he's uninjured now, he still remembers the scrape of claws and the spark of electricity. He rubs at his chest where the worst of the damage was, and his hand comes away damp blood-pinked water. He wipes it on the sheets, sighs, and says, “Come in.”

Isaac is crying before the door even opens. They're quick to swarm him on the bed, Jackson and Isaac tucking tight against his sides and Erica flopping directly across the three of them. Boyd sits down by his feet and Lydia stands in the doorway, watching them all with a fond smile. When he catches her eyes, she shrugs and says, “it's good to have you back.”

He swallows, asks, “Scott?” in a voice that scrapes on the way out. Boyd silently passes him a bottled water.

Isaac answers, muffled by Derek's armpit, “His mom is all pissed at him, he couldn’t get away.”

Derek decides to address that later, when he's feeling stronger and the others are less vulnerable. Boyd lays a hand on Derek's ankle, and when Derek looks at him his expression is so profoundly relieved that Derek has to swallow before he says, “What happened? I don't remember much about - what they did to me, but how -?” He doesn't know how to finish the question. He doesn't know.

The betas exchange glances. Boyd squeezes his ankle. Isaac presses closer to his side. Finally, Lydia clears her throat. “It was Stiles,” she says, soft. “It was all Stiles.”

 

 **from lydia, 10:53am** He’s fine. Awake and talking. Deaton has already come to check on him.

 **from lydia, 10:55am** Allison told me that she called Scott and Melissa. I swear to god Stilinski, you'd better be resting.

 **from lydia, 11:37am** I still maintain that it was a stupid plan.

 **from lydia, 11:37am** and you're just a fucking idiot.

 **from lydia, 11:38am** but. thank you.

 

The coffee shop is relatively quiet this time of day. Stiles takes a sip of his coffee and looks around, watching the barista behind the counter; he’s pretty sure he has English class with her, but she hasn’t recognized him yet or she’s decided to ignore him. Either is fine with Stiles. Other than Stiles and the barista, the cafe is dotted with college students busily typing away on their laptops. Thanksgiving has come and gone, and classes are in full swing again. The coffee pots gurgle away happily behind the counter. It’s public. Decently crowded, full of witnesses.

Across the table, Chris Argent clears his throat.

Stiles doesn’t look up right away, instead choosing to take another sip of his coffee, makes another scan of the coffee shop before he meets Chris’ eyes with a single eyebrow raised. Allison rolls her eyes. Chris looks about three seconds away from pulling his gun out. They stare at each other.

Chris breaks first, rolling his eyes as he looks away. “Well?” he says, and Stiles smirks. Under the table, Allison kicks Stiles in the ankle. He glares at her without heat, and she glares back. Stiles can feel Chris watching them, and finally Stiles sighs and puts his coffee cup down, settling his face into something more serious as he does so.

“I wanted to meet with you,” he says, maintaining eye contact with Chris as he does so, “to discuss a possible alliance.”

Chris’s eyebrows rise. “An alliance?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t look at Allison. He’s not sure what he’ll see on her face, and he doesn’t need it, whatever it is.

“With you.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “ _Yes_ , with me. Who else?”

“But you’re...just a human.”

Next to Chris, Allison coughs. She doesn’t look up from the intense study she’s making of her napkin, though she must feel their eyes on her. “I, um, might have neglected to mention the fact that Stiles is, um, training with Deaton to become a druid,” she finally mumbles. Chris’s eyebrows rise further.

“I see.”

Stiles takes a drink of his coffee. “Do you?” he asks. Out of the corner of his eyes, he notices the barista noticing him, and makes a pointed effort not to acknowledge her.

“Pardon?”

Stiles puts his coffee cup down with perhaps more force than necessary. “Do you see? Really?” Chris opens his mouth, but Stiles talks over him. “Do you understand what that means, really? Your bestiary’s information is inaccurate, but I’m fairly certain you know that. So I’m asking, have you really considered what it would mean for this town for me to be it’s druid, and do you really see what it would entitle to have any kind of treaty with me under that authority? Because I’m not sure that you have.”

Chris’s face has gone tight around the eyes and mouth, and his voice is very terse when he speaks. “Enlighten me, then.”

“Me becoming a druid, and me becoming a druid specific to this territory means that everything in it falls under my jurisdiction. Or, rather, that I act as a liaison in any supernatural business between this town and the nemeton. In terms of a treaty, that means that you respond to me.” Chris opens his mouth again, but Stiles cuts him off with a sharp, “ _no._ That’s it, that’s final. Hopefully me taking this position will settle some of the issues that have you so reluctant to settle to these terms, but I will be the voice for this territory, and if I say something or someone is untouchable, you listen to me.”

Chris works his jaw. “And Hale?”

“Derek,” he corrects, not gently, “and I have an understanding. To be allied with me would mean that you’re allied with him by extension.”

Chris slams his palms against the tabletop. “I will not ally myself with the man who killed my wife!”

“Careful, Argent,” Stiles says, mindful of the others in the coffee shop. Allison’s grip around her mug is white knuckled.

“Don’t you dare,” Chris says, but his voice is quieter. “Don’t you dare defend that man from me. He killed my wife.”

Stiles takes a drink of his coffee. He breathes deep through his nose and tucks his shaking hand under his thigh. The tremor was gone, for a while, but it’s back now with a vengeance. He doesn’t look at Allison. “With all due respect, Mr. Argent, your wife killed herself.”

“Bullshit!” Argent is trembling now, literally shaking with rage. Stiles other hand joins the first under his body, but he forces his voice to remain calm and quiet.

“It’s not. Your wife killed herself.”

“Because that _mutt_ ,” and oh, but Stiles stills at that, “bit her!”

“Don’t you _ever_ say anything like that about any of them in front of me again,” Stiles says, and his voice is still calm, but he feels the fury burning cold in his veins.

Chris sneers, and it makes his face ugly. “Or what?”

“You forget, I think, that to be a druid in this territory implies a certain amount of favor with the nemeton. There’s a lot that I could do with that ‘or what,’ but,” his eyes flick to Allison and away again, too quick to take in the expression on her face, “I would prefer not.”

“But you don’t deny that he bit her.”

“That would be a lie. No, I don’t deny that Derek bit your wife.” And for a moment Chris looks triumphant, and even through the calm rage that’s been burning in Stiles since Argent spit _mutt_ Stiles still feels guilty for what he says next. “However, it would also be a lie to pretend that he bit her in anything less than self defense. Victoria Argent was in the process of murdering Scott McCall, for the simple crime of loving your daughter while also being a werewolf, something that, mind you, Scott did not choose. Derek saved him, in the process getting hurt himself, and the only way he saw to get both him and Scott out of that situation alive was to bite her. But your wife took that knife into her body herself.”

Chris is beginning to look wild around the eyes. There is a sickness in Stiles’ stomach that he is very carefully ignoring. He does not look at Allison. “The bite - it doesn’t always take. And -”

“But it _did!”_ Stiles says, and though he doesn’t look at her, he sees and feels Allison go very, very still across the table. He takes a breath through the bile rising in his throat, tightens his hands into fists under his thighs. He hates this, he _hates_ this, so goddamn much. He forces himself to swallow, and not look at Allison, and say, "You were with your wife that night?" Chris nods, but Stiles doesn't wait for him to continue. "Well I was with Derek. He felt it, felt her change and become part of his pack." He swallows again. Chris's face is white. "And then he felt her die. So don't _tell me_ that Derek killed her when you know as well as I do that that's not the truth."

Chris isn't looking at him anymore. His gaze is on his hands. Stiles pretends not to notice the tears that drip into his lap. He does not look at Allison.

Eventually, Chris looks up. His eyes are slightly red, but his jaw is tight. He nods once, tersely. "We have an agreement."

Stiles exhales.

 

 **to allison, 7:13pm** i'm sorry.

 

The ceremony takes place on at dawn. It's December now, and the grass crunches with frost under Derek's feet as he walks to the clearing. He's the last one to arrive. Deaton is already there, talking quietly with John on the other side of the clearing, and Chris stands by himself with his arms crossed over his chest. Stiles sits in the cold dirt at the base of the nemeton, his forehead against the tree and his shoulders hunched. He's wearing a tshirt and jeans, but his feet are bare, toes curled in the dirt. Derek can see the goosebumps rising on his skin, and looks away. He closes his eyes, instead, and breathes in the crisp winter air, the way it burns just slightly in his nostrils with the cold.

When the pink light of dawn reaches the clearing, Deaton steps away from John and says, "We should get started."

Stiles stands, taking a step away from the tree, then kneels in the dirt again, his back to Derek. Deaton stands in front of him, and Stiles bows his head. Deaton places his hand on Stiles' skull and begins speaking.

Derek doesn't understand what he's saying. He thinks it might be in Gaelic. John has a piece of paper out, and from the way he's nodding Derek guesses it's a translation, but Derek doesn't need to understand to feel that it's working. He can feel the currents of energy under the earth rushing to the nemeton, can see the faint glow of the tree and the dirt on which Stiles kneels.

There's a pause, and Stiles puts his hand out so that his palm is flat against the bark. He says something, his voice louder and more powerful than Derek has ever heard it. Behind him, Deaton is nodding. From behind his back, he pulls a bundle wrapped in cloth, and as the cloth falls away Derek see that it's a large, ancient knife. He pricks his finger, and Derek watches the blood fall to the dirt. Stiles closes his eyes.

Deaton places his hand on Stiles shoulder, and they have a murmured conversation that Derek doesn't listen to. Stiles nods, and takes the knife from Deaton's hands. The handle is red with blood. Stiles says something, and Derek shudders as he feels it click into place beneath him, the authority of the words. Deaton is watching him, something shrewd in his expression, but before Derek can analyze it Stiles takes the knife and slashes it across his palm, then lays his hands against the tree as his blood splashes in the dirt. The smell of it is metallic and sharp. The wind stills.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then with a gasp Stiles slumps forward, palm on the tree and forehead against his knuckles, his other hand shooting out to catch him. Derek feels the pull of it too, a low buzz in his ears and a tug behind his heart, deep in his chest. John makes a noise and steps forward, but Deaton holds out a hand to stop him. Derek’s vision filters the faint red of his alpha vision, and he can hear the tree speaking to Stiles, a whisper from the next room in a language he doesn’t speak. Stiles shudders and shudders. The ground underneath their feet begins to warm, and though the sun is barely rising, Derek feels blinded and overwhelmed by the sense of _other_ flooding the clearing.

Stiles gives a gasp, and his hand drops from the trunk of the tree. When he lifts his head his eyes are unfocused and his face tear streaked. Derek swallows at the sight of him. Stiles eyes’ search for a moment before focusing on Deaton. He nods. Deaton exhales. The sun crests the tree tops, and the wind picks up again.

Stiles stays kneeling in the dirt, but Deaton steps away from him. Derek can smell the turmoil of emotions coming from Stiles, the salt of blood and fresh tears, as Deaton has a murmured conversation with John. After a moment, John nods, looking shaken. To the clearing at large, Deaton says, “Thank you all for being here. You’re free to go.”

Without another word, Chris turns and leaves the clearing. Derek hesitates, his eyes flicking to Stiles and catching on the way that he’s shaking, before he does the same.

 

Stiles doesn’t know how long he’s been lying in his bed when he hears the window opening.

He flinches away from the sound. He’s been trembling since before he left the clearing. He didn’t realize before this moment that it’s dark outside, nighttime. He can see the texture of the wall in the dark, and pulls his blankets tighter around himself. Derek says, “Stiles,” and he flinches again.

There’s too much white noise in his head. His ribs feel ready to burst with how full they are, full of _not his not his_ and whispers of the tree speaking things too ancient to understand. His heart, when he’s aware of it, is beating faster than a rabbit’s against his sternum. He aches.

The bed dips as Derek kneels on it. He says, “Stiles,” again. He says, “I’ll leave if you want me to.” He says, “I want to help you.”

Stiles says nothing.

Derek’s hand settles on his shoulder.

Stiles closes his eyes. He exhales.

Slowly, so slowly, Derek slips under the covers. Stiles feels goosebumps rising on his skin as cold air settles under the blankets, but a moment later Derek’s warmth engulfs him enough that he doesn’t feel it anymore. Derek says, “Can I take your pain?” and at Stiles’ nod, he slips his arm around his waist and catches Stiles’ wrist in one of his broad hands. At the touch of his hands, some of the white noise recedes, along with an ache in his palm that he hadn’t noticed and the tightness in his ribs.

Derek’s breath is warm on the back of his neck. The room is very dark and silent. Slowly, Stiles stops shaking.

After an eternity, Derek whispers, “I wish,” but he doesn’t finish his sentence. Stiles closes his eyes again. He wishes too.

He whispers, “You have to be gone before I wake up in the morning.”

Derek goes still against him; even his breathing stops. When he exhales, his breath is shaky. He rests his forehead between Stiles shoulder blades and holds him tighter. Stiles is trembling again, from something else entirely. He wishes -

He wishes -

Derek says, “Okay.” And then, “Good night, Stiles.”

 

In his dreams, Derek doesn’t have to leave in the morning.

 

(In his dreams, Stiles never left in the first place).

 

Derek walks down the middle of the road, hands in his pockets and breath clouding the air in front of him. It’s much colder today than it was yesterday, or even last night. Or maybe that’s just Derek, who is still caught up in remembering holding Stiles in the dark, of falling asleep curled around him.

(“I wish-” Derek started again, long after he’d said good night. He still didn’t finish that sentence, but he could tell Stiles was listening. “You could have told me. All those months ago, I mean. That you were planning this. I could have helped you.”

Stiles breathed unsteadily for a few long moments. He swallowed. “I was afraid that you would have asked me not to do it.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Derek reassured him. His thumb was stroking small circles on the joint of Stiles’ wrist as he pulled his pain. He couldn’t tell which hurt worse - Stiles’ aches or the awareness that this was all he wanted and all he couldn’t have.

“If you had asked me to stay,” Stiles whispered, much later and so quietly that Derek barely heard him, “I would have.” His breath hitched. Derek closed his eyes. _Oh,_ he thought, and placed the gentlest kiss on the back of Stiles neck. He could smell the salt of Stiles tears. _Oh,_ he thought, and held Stiles tighter.)

He’s almost there before he realizes that he’s been walking to Deaton’s office. He doesn’t stop, but he wonders if the veterinarian clinic is even open yet. Derek isn’t sure what time it is anyway, only that it’s early enough that the sun is peeking, yellow and cloudy, past the horizon.

The sign on the door reads _closed_ when he gets there, but when he tries the handle it’s open. The bell dings as he walks through the door, and a moment later Deaton appears around the corner, not yet in his lab coat. He says, “I’m sorry, we’re closed,” then catches sight of Derek and stops.

“Mr. Hale,” he says eventually, after staring at Derek for a long moment. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“It’s about Stiles.”

Worry flickers across Deaton’s face, which surprises Derek for some reason. “Is he all right?”

“He’s fine,” Derek says, then amends, “still adjusting.”

Deaton stares at Derek for a while. “Why don’t you follow me to the back.”

Deaton gestures him to a chair, but Derek remains standing. They watch each other, assessing, before Derek finally says, “My mother. She used to - _we_ used to give blood to the nemeton.” Deaton nods. “She said - she said that it connected us. That if we gave it power, it would give back to us.”

“A symbiotic relationship,” Deaton supplies. His eyes are much more interested than the tone of his words. Derek gazes back steadily, but the fact that Deaton hasn’t stopped him yet has something like hope buzzing in Derek’s stomach.

“Right.” He hesitates, swallows, says slowly, “I know that being a druid means you can’t - can’t have other ties outside of the land. And, and especially with the nemeton, the nemeton is sentient and possessive. That’s why Stiles didn’t join my pack, why he cut off ties with all of us.” Again, Deaton nods. His eyes are hopeful too. “But if, if my pack was tied to the land, then him being a part of it would be a tie inside the land, too. Right?”

Deaton stares at him for a long moment before he nods, looking like he’s about to smile.

Derek sits down heavily in the chair. “Oh my god,” he breathes, and then he has to laugh, because, “oh my god.”

Derek is still laughing when Deaton says, “There might be some complications though.”

Derek’s smile drops. “Oh.”

“The tree was thrown very off balance by the death of your family. Your pack provided a lot of stability and a lot of power to the area, and with it gone the nemeton had to work much harder. Additionally, when you and Laura left the tree rejected me also from being it’s druid, as I had been your emissary. It denied many connections associated with your pack because it was - angry is the wrong word, the tree does not have emotions, but it could not trust the stability of these connections after what happened with you.”

“Oh,” Derek says hollowly, thinking of Kate, thinking of finding Laura’s body in the woods.

“Don’t lose hope,” Deaton says, almost a reprimand. “The tree seems - very attached to Stiles. If you continue to take care of him as I suspect you’ve been doing, you will earn favor. Additionally, the longer your pack continues to be stable, the more tree will warm to you.”

Derek nods. He’d hoped - he’d hoped it would be a quicker fix. He thinks of Stiles, shaking in his arms, crying on his birthday, taking care of his pack when Derek couldn’t, and - wishes, again, for something different.

He takes a deep breath, looks down at his hands. They don’t have something different, they just have this, they have this and the pack and the tree, and nothing will ever be different if Derek doesn’t do something about it. He won’t leave Stiles again.

He looks up, meets Deaton’s eyes. “Where do we start?”

 

 

  
\-    fin    -  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh i'm very unhappy with how this chapter turned out. it's shorter than i wanted it to be and i'm not sure that i feel like it ties everything up as nicely as it did in my head. however, i've been sitting on it for ages and still couldn't make it better, so there you have it.
> 
> there will be a second part coming shortly - actually shortly this time, like within the week i swear - that will also be pretty short but will show derek and stiles after they get their happy ending.
> 
> idk i felt like the ending of this work was pretty hopeful? like, from the way that it ended i knew that derek was going to do whatever it took to get to stiles and that it was possible. but i also kinda like bittersweet ending so possibly other people might be pissed at me. feel free to ask any questions that you still have about the story, i'd be happy to answer them in the comments. 
> 
> thanks to everyone who stuck around!!
> 
> [tumblr](http://allyaisbae.tumblr.com/), if that's your thing


	5. there'll never be enough of us

Not a real chapter but I gave it a title from the titular song anyway because I'm extra.

 

**THE SEQUEL TO "BUZZCUT SEASON" IS POSTED. PART TWO OF THIS SERIES, ENTITLED "COLD ARMS." IT IS NOT A FULL LENGTH SEQUEL BUT I HOPE YOU STILL LIKE IT.**


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